In order to further strengthen the disclosures as made in the Letter of offer, certain additional disclosure requirements/modifications have been carried out in the existing standard format of the Letter of Offer.
The Stock Exchanges are directed to communicate to SEBI, the status of the implementation of the provisions of the above directions in Section II, Item No. 13 of the Monthly Development Report for the month of March, 2004.
The Board has received representation from PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry with regard to general difficulties being faced by Service Tax assessees.
Any orders passed by Addl. Commissioners/Joint Commissioners can neither be revised (u/s 84) nor can it be appealed before any appellate authority (u/s 85 and u/s 86). Therefore, in order to avoid problems of appeals against the orders passed by Joint Commissioners /Additional Commissioners/ Commissioners of Central Excise, an amendment was carried out in section 73 of the Finance Act, 1994 on 16.7.2001, which limited the authority to ACs /DCs of Central Excise for issuing the Show Cause Notices for short levy of service tax and also determination of such short levy by way of adjudication
The matter has been examined by the Board. It may be mentioned that in case of classification disputes, by & large, option is given for provisional clearance/assessment , if the inquiries are going to take time. However, the Board desires that a disputed or offending consignment should also not be held up unless its import/clearance is totally prohibited or banned under any law for the time being in force [E.g. PFA,CITES, Weight & Measures Act,etc.] or where prosecution is contemplated.
Wherever an application is for a total value of Rs. 50,000 or more, the applicant or in the case of application in joint names, each of the applicants, should mention his/her permanent account number (PAN) allotted under the Income Tax Act, 1961
The following changes have been made in the rates of customs and central excise duties on iron and steel and coal: (i) Excise duty on all iron and steel falling under chapter 72 has been reduced from 16% to 8%;
The matter has been considered by the Board and it is felt that certain Public Notices cannot be kept pending till any appointed day because the delay may result in loss of revenue or delay in clearance of imported/export goods. Accordingly, it has been decided to fix 1st and 3rd Mondays of the month for issuance of Public Notices.
The matter has been considered by the Board and it has been decided that as far as possible, officers should avoid raising piecemeal queries on Bills of Entry/ Shipping Bills. At the same time, where EDI is operational the Systems Manager/Administrators should also exercise proper check on the number and nature of queries raised and ensure that frivolous queries are avoided.
The Stock Exchanges (other than BSE and NSE) are advised to communicate to SEBI, the status of the implementation of the provisions of this circular in Section II, item no. 13 of the Monthly Development Report for the month of March 2004.
