New excise manual to be released on Sept. 1

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, AUG. 24. The Central Board of Excise and Customs will publish a new Excise Manual on September 1, which will come into force with immediate effect.

The manual is likely to contain some minor procedural reliefs, besides clarifications on some grey areas but no major procedural reliefs demanded by industry are under way. This indication emerged during an interaction meeting that the Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) had today with Mr. K. L. Verma, Member (Excise) of the board.

Mr. Verma said the department might extend the facility for removal of dies and moulds, jigs and fixtures to job workers without disturbing the CENVAT credit to supportive manufacturers where it is exclusively used for manufacture jigs and fixtures. The board would also issue instructions to implement the Supreme Court decision in the Mahindra and Mahindra case in respect of after sales service charges in a special leave petition filed by the government.

He also made it clear that show-cause notices should not be issued to assessees in cases where they had remitted the duty to the specified bank branches, since any delay in further transfer of the funds was an internal matter of the banking system and the assessee could not be held responsible for it.

However, Mr. Verma rejected most of the major demands made by the assessee community and the chamber. These include withdrawal of the norm of 115 per cent of the cost of production for valuation in cases of inter-unit transfers of inputs and capital goods, reversal of CENVAT credit at the actual duty-paid rate of 9.6. per cent or 12 per cent instead of at 16 per cent applied for rejection/returns to SSI manufacturers and grant of CENVAT benefit to capital goods used/installed outside the factory, as often is the case with industries like cement and minerals.

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Section  : Business
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