The Lok Sabha today passed the Taxation Laws (Amendment) Bill,2017 which seeks to amend the Customs Act 1962, the Customs Tariff Act 1975, the Central Excise Act 1944, the Finance Act, 2001 and the Finance Act, 2005 and to repeal certain enactments.
The Customs Act is proposed to be amended to include warehouse in the definition of customs area” to ensure that an importer would not be required to pay the proposed integrated goods and services tax at the time of removal of goods from a customs station to a warehouse.
The Customs Tariff Act is proposed to be amended to provide for levy of integrated goods and services tax and goods and services tax compensation cess on imported goods. The Central Excise Act is amended to proposes to levy duty only on a certain kind of petroleum products such as motor spirit, high speed diesel, aviation turbine fuel, and tobacco products.
In the Finance Act, 2001, the bill seeks to propose to limit the levy only to tobacco products and crude oil. Currenlty , the Finance Act, 2005 levies an Additional Excise Duty on several items such as pan masala and tobacco products and the bill proposes to remove petroleum oils, crude and other related products from this list. The Bill also seeks to repeal laws which include the Sugar Cess Act, 1982 and the Jute Manufacturers Cess Act, 1983.
Replying to a debate , Minister of State for Finance Santosh Gangwar said, the amendments were necessitated due to the subsuming of various excise duties in the GST law. He said, the government has set a target of rolling out a new indirect tax regime form the 1st of July. Initiating the discussion, Shashi Tharoor of Congress raised some issues related to the bill and sought clarifications from the Minister.Nisihikant Dubey of BJP said, the new tax regime is intended to control inflation and lead to rise in income of farmers
Later talking to reporters outside Parliament, Mr Jaitley said, Parliament has passed all the four bills related to GST unanimously. He said, it is a matter of happiness that all political parties extended their support in the passage of the bills. He said, after the President’s assent to the bills, they will become the Law. Mr Jaitley said, now the States can pass the State GST Bill in their assemblies.
