Vijay Kelkar, advisor to the finance minister, on Friday submitted the final reports on direct and indirect taxes to Finance Minister Jaswant Singh.
India has capped gold imports under the Advance Authorisation scheme at 100 kg, a day after significantly increasing import duties on precious metals. This move aims to tighten conditions for duty-free gold imports by jewellery exporters and curb non-essential imports amidst a ballooning import bill.
The Supreme Court of India has emphasised that a husband's obligation to maintain his wife is a primary and continuing duty, ensuring she lives with dignity and in a manner commensurate with her marital status.
At 5% customs duty, the govt will earn more than $3 bn
Given the oversupply and weak domestic demand, the paper and paperboard players will be unable to pass on the entire increase in duties, and will see a further drop in their EBITDA margins.
Customs officials at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport have thwarted two separate gold smuggling attempts, seizing over 3.17 kg of gold worth approximately Rs 4.35 crore and arresting three foreign nationals.
Despite a sharp increase in import duties on gold and silver to 15 per cent, the precious metals are trading at significant discounts in the domestic market, with gold seeing discounts of up to $200 an ounce and silver up to $6 an ounce.
'Unfortunately, today most ministers are busy with either election duty or praising duty. They are not interested in serving duty.' 'Ministers have become relaxed like retired people still holding onto jobs.' 'Look at how the NEET paper leaked. But there is no accountability.' 'After 12 years, they have become saturated. They are short of ideas.'
The apex body for liquor firms Confederation of Indian Alcoholic Beverage Companies has urged the government to gradually reduce customs duties on British alcoholic beverages under the proposed India-UK free trade agreement to support domestic players. India and the UK have formally launched negotiations for an FTA, under which duties would be reduced or eliminated on several goods traded between the two countries. The Confederation of Indian Alcoholic Beverage Companies (CIABC) has also suggested the government to ensure that the UK allows the selling of domestic whiskies as 'Indian Whisky', irrespective of whether they are made from malt, grain spirits or molasses-based spirits.
The government should cut customs duties and streamline export promotion schemes and pay special attention to infrastructure to overcome the contracting exports on account of recession in India's major trading partners, the Economic Survey said.
India should accelerate the pace of reduction of customs duty rather than merely carry on building up the foreign exchange reserves, according to Montek Singh Ahluwalia, former finance secretary and one of the authors of India's economic reforms.
Impose safeguard duty on select paper varieties and hike customs duty
The steep hike in onion prices set alarm bells ringing in the government, which has imposed a ban on onion exports till January 15, 2011, to increase availability in the domestic market.
The domestic crude oil producers will benefit from levy of customs duty at 5% on crude oil, and effective tax incidence will come down due to weighted deduction on R & D as well as cut in the surcharge on corporate taxes for domestic companies
German carmaker Audi plans to reassess and adjust its product launch strategy in India once the specific details of import duty reductions under the India-EU free trade agreement (FTA) become clear, according to Balbir Singh Dhillon, the brand's director in India.
The ferro alloy sector seeks hike in customs duty on entire range of ferro alloys to 10%, except retaining customs duty on ferro nickel at 5%, which is fully imported.
The government will cut excise and customs duty on petrol, diesel, LPG and kerosene to contain the effect of spike in international crude oil prices, which touched an all-time high of $47 a barrel.
The govt has hiked customs duty for metallurgical coke.
Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran stated that India's economy is projected to return to a 7 per cent-plus growth trajectory by 2027-28 (FY28), or sooner if external conditions improve, despite near-term challenges from the West Asia crisis.
The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has proposed a 20-point policy agenda to the finance ministry, including a conflict-linked emergency credit line guarantee scheme and tax rationalisation on energy inputs, to support MSMEs, exporters, and energy-intensive industries affected by the ongoing West Asia war.
Move could fetch the exchequer Rs 14,000 cr
The government may cut customs duty on petrol and diesel by 5 per cent each to avoid increasing prices that had been necessitated due to a spurt in international oil prices.
The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has dismantled a major gold-smuggling syndicate at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, seizing 3.2 kg of gold worth Rs 5 crore. Seven individuals, including Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan nationals and three airport staff, have been arrested in connection with "Operation Golden Nexus."
The Union government is likely to cut import duties on diesel, kerosene and cooking gas to cushion the impact of high international crude oil prices on the domestic market.
The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence has booked cases at Mumbai and Delhi against private airlines Jet Airways and Air Sahara for non-payment of customs duty, the Lok Sabha was informed on Friday.
The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has dismantled a gold smuggling syndicate at Mumbai's international airport, seizing 2.6 kg of gold in wax form, valued at approximately Rs 4.20 crore.
The Central Board of Excise and Customs, through a notification on February 12, has slashed the duty on both the variants of motorcycles imported as completely build units (CBU) to 50 per cent.
The government may tweak customs duties in the Budget next week on several goods, including furniture raw materials, copper scrap, certain chemicals, telecom equipment and rubber products, to promote domestic manufacturing and exports, sources said. They said that while import duties could be tweaked on over 20 products such as cut and polished diamonds, rubber goods, leather garments, telecom equipment and carpet, the customs duties could be removed on select raw materials (like wood in rough, swan wood and hard board) used for furniture manufacturing and copper concentrate.
'Once the market decides it wants to go up, it goes up -- no amount of bad news can really hold it back.'
Even as the government's move to hike import duties on 45 items is seen as a sign of protectionism, the prime minister was himself involved in the process.
'Customers do not recover the original making charges paid on old jewellery. Sentimental value is lost when heirlooms are exchanged.'
In a moved aimed at bringing inflation under control, the government cut customs duty on 11 product categories, including portland cement, capital goods, project imports and raw materials, late Monday night.
Buckling under pressure from various quarters, the government on Monday withdrew the harsh provisions relating to excise and customs duty evasion cases. In Finance Bill 2012-13, it had earlier proposed to make certain excise and customs duty evasion cases non-bailable until the court had heard the public prosecutor.
Tata Motors' commercial vehicle business is increasingly focusing on parts, services, connected-vehicle platforms, and digital businesses to drive growth and reduce dependence on cyclical vehicle sales, as outlined in its FY26 annual report.
India's indigenous paper manufacturers are forced to use a variety of raw materials.
As domestic metal prices will rise faster than global prices if customs duty on metals is hiked, the capital goods sector seeks retaining them at current levels.
For patients, the immediate impact is a reduction in the final cost of therapies that often run into lakhs per month.
