What are excise and customs officers dual role? FM articulates

Chairperson Sundharam

SENIOR officers of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) need to have a dual role, first as facilitators for tax payers and then as strict tax-men taking action wherever cases of revenue leakages or tax evasion are spotted, said finance minister Arun Jaitley in New Delhi on Monday. It was a conference of chief commissioners and directors general of customs, central excise and service tax, but at least four GoI secretaries including…
revenue secretary Shaktikanta Das, expenditure secretary RP Watal, disinvestment secretary Ravi Mathur, financial services secretary GS Sandhu were present in the meeting. Chairman of Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and members of both CBEC and CBDT were present in the meeting.
CBEC chairperson Ms JM Shanti Sundharam (in the photo) said her organization recognizes the importance of providing a non-adversarial tax regime elaborating the steps being taken to reduce litigation and enhance consultative mechanism. CBEC’s latest initiative, as she pointed out, was the Indian Customs Single Window Project which is a large and complex IT initiative enabling a single point interface for trade to lodge, complete and obtain clearances for all import, export and border control related regulatory requirements.
Ahead of the Independence Day, Ms Sundharam took the opportunity to underline the department’s patriotic role. She reminds everyone that it is this department that prevents activities inimical to the country’s national interest such as trafficking in drugs, flora, fauna, fake currency, weapons of mass destruction, dual use chemicals, arms etc.
The revenue targets for indirect taxes for 2014-15 is fixed at Rs 6,23,244 crore, with an overall growth rate of more than 25%. But, the growth in the first quarter was about 4.5% only though in the month of June 2014, it registered a 13.5% growth as compared to the corresponding period last fiscal.