Changes in excise, customs and service tax through Finance Bill, 2005

Additional duty of customs introduced to offset internal taxes, applied initially to ITA items and specified manufacturing inputs.

The Finance Bill, 2005 introduces an enabling levy of an additional duty of customs (up to 4%) aimed at counterbalancing internal taxes, initially applied to ITA bound items and specified inputs for IT/electronics manufacture, excluded from education cess valuation, and available as credit for manufacturers. It lowers the peak customs tariff and adjusts sectoral duties and exemptions, extends and revises NCCD, imposes excise surcharges on pan masala and tobacco, deems refining of edible oils as manufacture retrospectively, aligns tariff schedules with a new eight digit nomenclature, creates a structured recovery regime for pre cutoff AED(GSI) credits, and expands service tax scope while revising procedural and advance ruling provisions.