The Union Budget has envisaged several initiatives on indirect taxes to encourage flagship programme of the government ‘Make in India’ in a big way, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) director Rajitha Boorugu has said.

“Customs duty rates have increased on several items on imported products while lowering duty on domestic supply,” she told The Hindu on the sidelines of a meeting organised by Confederation of Indian Industry here recently.

Ms. Rajitha said now Chinese toys and import of several beauty products would come down due to revised customs duties. Health cess at the rate of 5% on total value of imported medical devices would encourage the domestic industry. This would also give a big boost to the AP MedTech Zone, India’s premier medical devices manufacturing park coming up in Visakhapatnam. However, import of components has been exempted from the purview of the cess.

Checking GST fraud

She also said GST credit on fraudulent basis was being discouraged with the imposition of heavy penalty including, issuance of non-bailable warrant for the first time. Ms. Rajitha said the Finance Minister had mooted more strict process to stop misuse of it by claiming benefits from country of registration instead of origin under Free Trade Agreements with Japan, South East Asia and other regions.

She said the trade would be benefited due to introduction of electronic duty credit ledger enabling assessees to place remission of duty and use it for other payments.

She said the government had reiterated its commitment to implement e-in-voice from April 1.