CBEC to be renamed in current Parliament session

By Meghna Mittal

New Delhi, July 19 (IANS) The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) which started functioning with the new reorganised structure ahead of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) roll-out, will get its new name - Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) - in the current Parliament session, a top government official has said.

"CBEC is renamed, and CBIC is going to be the name. But it needs to be done as a legislative change, because it was part of the Central Board of Revenues Act, 1963. So it's still in the process. It will happen in this Parliament Session," CBEC Chairperson Vanaja Sarna told IANS in an interview.

The Parliament's Monsoon Session commenced on July 17, and will come to an end on August 11.

National Academy of Customs, Excise and Narcotics (NACEN), the training establishment, has been renamed as National Academy of Customs, Indirect Taxes and Narcotics (NACIN).

"That change has taken place because it does not need legislative change. Only this one needs legislative change, so it will go to the Parliament. It has to be done formally," she said.

The government had announced the renaming of the tax authority for indirect taxes towards the end of March itself, but the process has still not been completed because it needs a legislative change.

CBEC underwent reorganisation of the field formations of CBEC for the GST implementation. It now has 21 zones, 101 GST taxpayer services commissionerates comprising 15 sub-commissionerates, 768 divisions, 3,969 ranges, 49 audit commissionerates and 50 appeals commissionerates.

"In CBEC, we have made the organisational changes. So we are already well into the restructured organisation. But we kept the same 3-tier structure, which is commissionerate, division and range," she said.

Sarna said that CBEC officials have adapted well to the new GST regime and are in a comfort zone.

"As far as states were concerned, they were dealing with VAT and had never done service tax. CBEC was the authority for service tax. So for GST on services, CBEC is very comfortable with. On the goods, we had the central excise duty. So basically, lot of GST law is built on the existing central excise and service tax provision and some part of VAT," she said.

"So there is no difficulty for us at all," she added.

CBEC is now administering both the GST as well as excise as a few products like petrol and diesel will attract excise duty.

(Meghna Mittal can be reached at meghna.m@ians.in)

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