Ahead of the Budget, the government reduced import duties on smartphone components and spare parts to 10 per cent from 15 per cent earlier. The Ministry of Finance (MoF) announced this in an official gazette notification on January 30.
As part of the revision, tariffs on components such as battery covers, antennas, sealing gaskets, sim sockets, and others, included under the mechanics category, have been reduced. Similarly, import duties on die-cut components like LCD foam, conductive cloth, and sticker-battery slots, among others, have been slashed to 10 per cent.

Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra on Saturday said the customs department is developing a fully automated trade interface system, Customs 2.0, which would also help in improving its score in the World Bank’s ranking.Speaking on the International Customs Day 2024 celebrations, organised by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), Malhotra said technology is going to be the main driver in improving customs processes.

The World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index 2023, which was released in April last year, had ranked Customs processes at 47th spot, down from 40th position in 2018. “India is on course to become the third largest economy surpassing GDP of USD 5 trillion. Yet we are ranked 47th out of 139 countries in the World Bank report’. There is a huge scope for improvement for us not only in terms of score but also in terms of ranking, Malhotra said.

While the changes in rates of income and corporate taxes, incorporated in the Budget announced on February 1, are effective from April 1 or a notified date, most of the changes in customs and excise duty rates become effective from midnight.

India’s Custom authorities are “actively deploying” cutting-edge technologies including big data analytics, artificial intelligence, image analytics to detect fraud and curb illegal trade, Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) Chairman Sanjay Agarwal said on Monday.

“The Indian customs administration is combining domain expertise with innovative technology to manage cargo related risks and ensure compliance effectively. A curated risk based approach is being deployed in processing and mitigating the identified risks associated with customs declaration while consciously striking a balance between enforcement and facilitation,” Agarwal said while speaking at the ‘Global Conference on Cooperation in Enforcement Matters’ organised by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence.

The CBIC is mulling a comprehensive restructuring of the organisation, set up 6 decades ago, to make it more effective and remove overlapping, if any, as many of its functions have undergone transformation following introduction of new technologies, abolition of service tax and roll-out of GST which has subsumed several levies.
The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs or CBIC (formerly knows as Central Board of Excise and Customs) was set up in 1964.

The ministry of commerce is in talks with regulators and other departments to put in place systems that will level the field between exports through e-commerce and traditional channels, when it comes to tax refunds, a senior official said Tuesday.

“A lot of policy tweaking is required. Most of our trade regulations are designed for business-to-business (B2B) interface but e-commerce breaks that barrier and it is a scenario where B2C interface is higher,” Director General of Foreign Trade Santosh Kumar Sarangi said.


One big issue in exports through e-commerce, he said, is how sellers can get the benefit of remission of tax and duties, which traditional exporters do.

With the Electronic Cash Ledger facility for Customs duty payments facing hiccups after its launch earlier this month, the finance ministry has decided to postpone the next phase of the project by two months to June 30. The phase was to start on May 1.

Accordingly, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs has given a three-month exemption to payments relating to baggage and international courier shipments from the ECL facility.


The exemption, which was till April 30, has not been extended till June 30, according to a CBIC notification.

About 20 days after its launch, the Electronic Cash Ledger (ECL) for payment of custom duty is now normalising although several exporters and importers continued to complain of problems, said the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs.

“We are happy to announce that ECL is moving towards normalcy and is receiving more acceptance among users,” the CBIC said, adding that users made customs duty payments of `1,200 crore on Thursday.

The CBIC is likely to soon introduce a system of publishing daily currency exchange rates on the integrated customs portal, replacing the existing system of notifying rates fortnightly.

The move would help capture daily exchange rate fluctuations and help importers and exporters to precisely calculate customs duties based on daily exchange rate.

Currently, Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) manually notifies exchange rates of 22 currencies every fortnight -- 1st and 3rd Thursday of a month -- based of rates obtained from the State Bank of India (SBI). The rate notified comes into effect from midnight of the following day.

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has waived the entire interest payable for the period between April 1 and April 10 to importers on account of challenges owing to technical glitch linked to the electronic cash ledger (ECL).

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has decided to enable Electronic Cash Ledger (ECL) in phases for importers and exporters effective April 1. However the importers faced some difficulties in making payment.

After receiving complaints from importers, the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN), the revenue secretary conducted a meeting asking the technology provider to fix the glitch.

The government on Wednesday increased the import duty on toys and its components to 70 per cent with a view to cut inbound shipments of these products and boost domestic manufacturing activities. Similarly, import duty on bicycles has also been hiked to 35 per cent from 30 per cent, according to a Union Budget document.

Import duty hike on toys and parts of toys excludes parts of electronic toys.

Earlier, basic customs duty on toys was increased from 20 per cent to 60 per cent in February, 2020 to promote local manufacturing.

India on Wednesday said it will raise taxes on imported cars and motorbikes, including electric vehicles (EVs), as it seeks to boost local manufacturing in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "Make in India" campaign ahead of elections in 2024.

All vehicles with a landed cost of less than $40,000 will be taxed at 70%, up from 60% earlier, a move analysts say could impact demand. The landed cost includes the vehicle's price tag plus insurance and freight costs.

Import tax on all semi-knocked-down cars - where major parts are imported separately and the final vehicle is assembled in the country - will be raised to 35% from 30%.

With promotion of exports and enhancement of domestic manufacturing in focus, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday announced a rejig in custom duties on various commodities and products.

The concessional duty on the import of lithium-ion batteries has been extended for a year.

The customs duties on dore and bars of gold and platinum were increased earlier this fiscal. FM proposed to increase the duties on articles made therefrom to enhance the duty differential. "I also propose to increase the import duty on silver dore, bars and articles to align them with that on gold and platinum," she said.

The basic customs duty rate on compounded rubber will be increased from 10% to 25% or Rs 30/kg, whichever is lower, on par with that on natural rubber other than latex, to curb circumvention of duty.

The government has exempted customs duty on imports of Covid-19 vaccines till March 31, 2023 in a bid to ensure domestic availability amid fears of a surge in coronavirus infections. In a notification, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) said Covid vaccines, when imported into India by central government or state governments, would be exempt from the whole of customs duty from January 14, 2023 till March 31, 2023.

The government had, in April 2021, first exempted Covid-19 vaccines from 10 per cent customs duty. The exemption was extended several times till June 2022.

With new variants causing significant rise in daily case load in certain countries, including neighbouring China, the government had re-introduced certain precautionary measures, like random passenger testing at airports and genome sequencing, to check Covid spread in India.

The CBIC on Wednesday came out with a mechanism to check the undervaluation of imported goods under which two committees comprising tax officers will be set up for screening and evaluation.

The CBIC has notified the Customs (Assistance in Value Declaration of Identified Imported Goods) Rules, 2023, which will come into effect from February 11.

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) will come out with a list of 'identified goods', which will be subject to stricter scrutiny for their true value.

As per the rules, two committees will be constituted -- a screening committee for a preliminary examination of 'identified goods' and an evaluation committee for a detailed examination.

The government on Wednesday notified new rules to address the menace of undervalued imports, proposed in the Budget, which will kick in on February 11 and could help raise revenue marginally.

The Customs (Assistance in Value Declaration of Identified Imported Goods) Rules, 2023 will identify a list of goods where there is reason to believe the value may not be declared truthfully or accurately and the importer would have to undertake additional obligations in this regard. The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs can specify such goods, which would be examined by a screening committee and later by an evaluation committee. “The written reference must have been made to the board which, if found suitable by screening committee for detailed examination, must have been comprehensively examined by evaluation committee which should have concluded the likelihood that the value of the relevant class of goods may not be declared truthfully …,” said the CBIC in a circular, adding that if satisfied, the board may then specify the identified goods.

With the India-Australia interim trade deal set to kick off later this month, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs has notified the Rules of Origin. The notification, which relates to the eligibility requirement to claim the preferential customs duty on trade in goods, under the economic cooperation and trade agreement (ECTA), will come into effect from December 29. This is when the ECTA will also come into effect.

RoAs specify the threshold for value addition in the country concerned to qualify for the tax concessions under the FTA, so that the benefits are not misused by firms based in other countries.

The Centre may hike the duties on imports of "non-essential items" ahead of growing concerns around a slowdown in exports and a widening trade deficit. Several ministries are in the process of shortlisting the commodities for duty hikes, as reported by the Indian Express (IE). The list will reportedly be restricted to only the commodities that have "enough manufacturing capacity" in the country.

"We are looking at non-essential imports for which there is enough manufacturing capacity. It is to identify non-essential items, where there is sufficient production capacity and allow for higher import substitution," an official told IE.

Importers will have to furnish additional information at Customs Automated System and while filing a bill of entry in case of "specified goods"

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has released the draft rules pertaining to the Customs Valuation of imported goods, which will effectively implement the amendment proposed in Section 14 of the Customs Act which deals with the valuation of imported goods.

The finance ministry has extended concessional customs duty on edible oil imports by another 6 months till March 2023, a move aimed at increasing domestic supply and keeping prices under control.

In a notification, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) said the existing concessional import duties on specified edible oils will be extended up to March 31, 2023.