Customs tariff changes and Social Welfare Surcharge implemented, with duty restructurings and procedural modernisation for trade facilitation.
Tariff amendments revise Basic Customs Duty across many headings-raising duties on selected consumer goods, electronics, vehicle engines and parts, and certain textiles and footwear, while reducing or exempting duty on particular industrial inputs and solar components; the Finance Bill also imposes a Social Welfare Surcharge, abolishes the Education and SHE cesses, and creates specified exemptions from the new surcharge for certain precious metals and fuels. Concurrently, the Customs Act is amended to modernise procedures: expanded extraterritorial reach, enhanced verification and provisional assessment rules, risk-based selection and audit provisions, creation of Customs Authority for Advance Rulings and appeal routes, provision for Customs Automated System clearance, electronic cash ledger payments, controlled delivery authority, and reciprocal information-exchange arrangements.

Integration of SEZ bulk cargo delivery: extend port procedure to warehouse consignments, require Ex-bond processing and O.O.C issuance.
Integration of SEZ bulk cargo delivery via SEZ online continues the existing port-to-SEZ procedure and extends it to warehoused cargo: after filing the Ex-bond Bill of Entry follow the prescribed steps; once a transshipment reference is generated in Import Noting, forward the Ex-bond Bill of Entry to the Bonds Section for issuance of O.O.C in GAT module in ICES.

Empanelment of chartered engineers for customs valuation of second hand machinery, with prescribed professional charges and reporting duties.
Specified Chartered Engineers/Fellows are empanelled for valuation of second hand machinery and other goods within the Commissionerate; empanelment is valid for one year, requires half yearly self appraisal reports, carries prescribed professional charges payable by the importer, and valuation reports by notified agencies or empanelled engineers must be in the annexed Form B.

SEZ approvals: Board extended formal approvals, granted co developer status and conditioned shareholding changes on compliance.
Board extended formal approvals and Letters of Permission for specified SEZ projects and units-typically by up to one year or shorter interim periods where projects were being consolidated-approved co developer statuses subject to SEZ Act and Rules and a 30 year lease cap, rejected a power SEZ proposal inconsistent with sector guidelines and lacking State recommendation, and granted conditional approvals for multiple shareholding or constitutional changes. All approvals required continuity of SEZ obligations, fulfilment of eligibility and security criteria, compliance with Revenue/Company/SEBI rules, furnishing financial and PAN details to CBDT, and recognition of Assessing Officer tax assessment rights.

Ports of entry restriction: plant and plant material imports permitted only through specified authorized entry points.
Instruction No. 01/2018 directs that imports of plants, plant materials and other regulated plant articles must be allowed only through customs stations specified in the Plant Quarantine Order (Regulation of Import into India), 2003 (as amended). It identifies Guwahati Airport and Guwahati foreign post office, and the land customs stations at Agartala, Moreh and Zokhawthar as the authorised entry points within the Commissionerate's jurisdiction and warns that non compliance with this requirement will be viewed seriously.

Waiver of late filing fees for bills of entry during system outage, with affected cases processed by customs officials.
Exemption granted from levy of amendment fee and charges for late filing of Bills of Entry for entries affected by an ICES directory update that suspended data entry operations. The Customs office determined that there will be no late fee for the period during which data entry services were interrupted. Waiver requests are to be processed by the relevant Deputy/Assistant Commissioner and put up to the Joint/Additional Commissioner of Customs; difficulties should be reported to the issuing office.

Export under LUT now permitted without Bank Guarantee; exporters must obtain LUT acceptance and return original bond.
The department will return Bank Guarantees submitted by exporters to the issuing bank only after the registered person obtains a letter of acceptance of LUT under the 04.10.2017 notification and surrenders the original letter of acceptance of Bond to the Department; Export Cell/KCS ward in charges are directed to initiate the necessary action and provide intimation to the registered person.

Ayurvedic medicine classification determines GST rate through the classical and proprietary distinction under authoritative books and labels.
Ayurvedic medicines are classified for GST based on whether they are manufactured according to the authoritative books specified in the First Schedule to the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940. Medicines made exclusively in accordance with those books and sold under the corresponding book name are treated as classical medicines and taxed at 5 per cent. Medicines made on self-developed or experiential formulas are treated as proprietary medicines and taxed at 12 per cent, with the label showing the ingredients and quantities used.

Change in jurisdictional processing: new regional authority must amend IEC, notify original authority, and enable applicant benefits.
The amendment requires that when a Head Office or Registered Office address change in an IEC results in a shift of jurisdiction, the request must be made to the new RA, which shall amend the IEC based on submitted documents, notify the RA that originally issued the IEC of the changes, and thereafter allow the applicant to carry out functions and apply for eligible benefits under the Foreign Trade Policy.

Removal of Minimum Export Price permits export of specified onion HS items without MEP until further orders.
Export policy amendment removes the Minimum Export Price (MEP) requirement for the item descriptions at the specified serial numbers in Chapter 7 of Schedule 2 of the ITC (HS) Classification, permitting export of those onion varieties without any MEP until further orders; departmental officers must treat this Public Notice as a standing order and exporters may report difficulties to the designated customs contacts.

KYC verification for courier consignments: individual ID and recorded delivery address suffice; GSTIN or PAN serve for entities.
KYC for courier imports/exports: for individuals Aadhaar, passport, PAN or voter ID suffice when the authorised courier records the delivery address; for firms or institutions GSTIN suffices, otherwise UIN or PAN; letter/document packages are exempt from KYC but must be X rayed to confirm they contain only documents.

All Industry Rates of Duty Drawback amended, changing rates for specified goods and deleting a tariff item.
Amendments revise the All Industry Rates (AIRs) of Duty Drawback effective 25.01.2018 by enhancing AIRs/caps for specified marine products, rubber articles (including automobile and bicycle tyres/tubes), leather goods, wool yarns/fabrics, glass handicrafts, bicycles, and certain man-made textile nets, while reducing AIRs/caps for specified chemicals; tariff item 391802 (polypropylene mats) is deleted from the Drawback Schedule and polypropylene mats remain classifiable under tariff item 460101 with the existing rate/cap.

E-Way bill requirement for interstate movement of specified commodities under state GST rules affirmed; intra-state dispensation remains.
State clarification affirms the operative status of the state E-Way bill framework and confirms that the state notification requiring e-Way bills for a restricted list of commodities governs interstate movements, while the requirement for intra-state movement remains dispensed under the cited dispensation.

Refund claims for inverted duty, deemed exports and electronic cash ledger balances must be filed and processed manually.
Manual filing and processing of refund claims for inverted duty structure, deemed exports, and excess electronic cash ledger balances is required until the portal refund module is available; claims must be made in FORM GST RFD-01A (monthly, with quarterly option for eligible small taxpayers), accompanied by prescribed statements (Statement-1/1A for inverted duty, Statement-5B for deemed exports) and necessary undertakings, with provisional sanctions subject to repayment undertakings and inter-authority communication via designated nodal officers for payment.

Additional TER for beyond-top cities revised to permit extra expense charging on a wider set of city inflows.
The circular expands the geographic cohort eligible for an additional TER of up to thirty basis points by substituting references to top-15/beyond-top-15 cities with top-30/beyond-top-30 across the cited SEBI circulars, while retaining existing eligibility tests based on the higher of a specified share of gross new inflows or a proportion of average assets under management; the amendment is effective from the stated applicability date and preserves other provisions unchanged.

Additional expense charge prohibited for mutual fund schemes without exit load; AMCs must discontinue such levies immediately.
Where a mutual fund scheme, including close-ended schemes, does not levy an exit load or exit load is not applicable, the AMC is not eligible to charge the additional expenses permitted under Regulation 52 (6A)(c); schemes currently levying such charges must discontinue them immediately.

Customs jurisdiction expansion transfers customs functions from excise formations to the Visakhapatnam Commissionerate, altering administrative control.
The reorganization transfers customs functions formerly handled by Central Excise formations to the Commissioner of Customs, Visakhapatnam and expands the Principal Commissioner's territorial jurisdiction to include the Port of Visakhapatnam, Gangavaram Port, Visakhapatnam International Airport, the Special Economic Zone, Greater Visakhapatnam municipal areas, a specified Container Freight Station, and the continental shelf and Exclusive Economic Zone areas, with administration of customs work in those areas vested in officers under the Principal Commissioner pursuant to the cited notifications.

Appointment of Appellate Authority: Additional Commissioner designated to hear HGST appeals under relevant appellate provisions.
Sh. R.B.S. Tewatia, Additional Commissioner of State Tax, Head Office Panchkula, is designated as Additional Commissioner of State Tax (Appeals)-cum-Appellate Authority for Haryana to hear appeals under the HGST appellate provisions, assigned in addition to his present duties and without any extra remuneration.

Ahmedabad Customs adds an Export Promotion Circle; traders must approach jurisdictional GST for LUT issuance and factory sealing.
Ahmedabad Customs has added an Export Promotion Circle and issued an amended Annexure A listing EPC jurisdictions and offices; traders are directed to approach their jurisdictional GST offices for issuance of Letters of Undertaking and for factory sealing matters as per the applicable LUT rule and board circulars, and to report any difficulties to the department.

GST refund workflow requires nodal officer email coordination and strict acknowledgements and finalisation timelines for manual claims.
Designation of nodal officers and a defined manual refund workflow mandate that nodal and jurisdictional proper officers use official email for all communications, forward misdirected claims promptly, and ensure back office entries. Taxpayers file RFD-01A with ARN on the portal and submit hardcopies to proper officers who must scrutinize applications, issue single deficiency memos if required, record entries in the back office, issue provisional and final refund orders and payment advice from the back office, present payment advice to PAO/Treasury with MTC 70 register entries, and monitor and update payment releases.