The central Government bodies of the country are currently working with exporters and importers to prepare them for the upcoming Goods and Service Tax (GST), which is going to be implemented from 1 July 2017 in India.
Custom duty is reportedly not getting subsumed under the new tax regime, which then includes only service tax and central excise duty. Still, every import will be considered as an inter-state supply and will undoubtedly attract IGST, while the exports will be zero-rated.
Moreover, there is no levy of the countervailing duty and special additional duty of customs for many imports. In the same way, laws and procedures along with the IT system of the two levies are also getting synced to check duty evasion and process refunds.
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Talking about the launch campaigns, the Department of Commerce and the Directorate General of Foreign Trade also have started working on creating awareness. On the other hand, the Central Board of Excise and Customs has asked the customs dept. to introduce these type of campaigns for clarification of doubts.
A recent CBEC missive said, “The readiness of the customs administration and trade shall be crucial for the smooth roll-out of GST”. It further added that the changes in customs law and procedures must have to collaborate with the changes in electronic data interchange system.
The entry bill information of the exporters will be cross-checked with their GSTN returns, and the importers are also expected to announce their GSTIN to claim credit on the paid IGST. In the same way, the CBEC has also modified the shipping bills to capture the details electronically like GSTIN of the exporter and GST export invoice.
CBEC further made a statement that in the coming future, only details of GST Identification Number and Permanent Account Number will be required in the shipping bills.