Basic customs duty changes reorganise import tariff reliefs and increases across strategic manufacturing and project imports.
Proposals revise basic customs duty rates and clarify notifications across sectors, granting nil-rating or reduced duties for specified defence, medical device, nuclear project and electronics capital goods imports, while increasing duties on various agricultural, petrochemical, plastic, metal, paper, flooring and automobile imports; they also permit duty on depreciated transaction value for disposal of petroleum-operation imports, expand duty-free inputs for sports-goods exports, and clarify duty treatment for non-pellet prawn and shrimp feeds.

Export duty reductions proposed under Finance Bill lower tariffs on tanned leather and hides, skins and leathers.
The Finance (No.2) Bill, 2019 proposes removal of export duty on EI tanned leather and a reduction of export duty on hides, skins and leathers, tanned and untanned, effecting tariff-rate adjustments for the leather sector under customs regulation.

Road and Infrastructure Cess increase on petrol and diesel takes effect, raising scheduled additional customs duty per litre.
Amendment to the Sixth Schedule to the Finance Act, 2018 increases the scheduled rate of Road and Infrastructure Cess as an additional duty of customs on motor spirit (petrol) and high speed diesel; the Finance (No. 2) Bill, 2019 prescribes the new per litre scheduled rate and the amendment is to take effect from 06.07.2019 with immediate provisional operation under the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act, 1931.

Road and Infrastructure Cess increase on petrol and diesel raises additional customs duty incidence and alters fuel taxation.
The Finance (No. 2) Bill, 2019 increases the Road and Infrastructure Cess levied as an additional duty of customs on motor spirit (petrol) and high speed diesel, thereby raising the per litre cess rate applied to these fuels and altering the customs duty component in fuel taxation.

Retrospective amendments correct customs classifications and extend exemptions for temporary vehicle imports and antidumping measures.
The Finance (No. 2) Bill, 2019 proposes retrospective amendments to insert correct customs tariff headings for stearic acid and to correct antidumping classifications and exclusions for polyester yarn and polypropylene, and to give retrospective effect to an exemption of IGST and compensation cess on temporary vehicle imports under the carnet regime, thereby altering duty, IGST/cess and antidumping chargeability for specified past periods.

Customs tariff amendments extend concessional feed treatment and explicitly exempt specified semiconductor machines and audio components from BCD.
The amendments confirm that prawn feed and shrimp larvae feed in any form attract a concessional rate of 5%, while fish feed qualifies only in pellet form; propose inclusion of HS 8486 to exempt semiconductor manufacture machines from basic customs duty; add headphones, earphones and combined microphone/speaker sets to tariff subheading 8518 30 00 consistent with ITA commitments; and amend notification No. 57/2017-Customs to explicitly exclude microphones, receivers, speakers, connectors and SIM sockets from a concession entry.

Excise duty definitions clarified: amendments specify basic excise duty, road and infrastructure cess, and special additional excise duty.
Amendments define three core excise components-Basic Excise Duty as set out in the Fourth Schedule, Road and Infrastructure Cess as the additional excise introduced by the Finance Act 2018, and Special Additional Excise Duty as the levy created by the Finance Act 2002-and provide that changes effected by the Finance (No. 2) Bill, 2019 take effect on enactment unless otherwise specified.

Basic excise duty on petroleum crude raised, imposing a nominal per tonne duty and enabling provisional collection under tax law.
The Finance (No.2) Bill, 2019 amends the Fourth Schedule to the Central Excise Act, 1944 to impose a nominal per tonne basic excise duty on petroleum crude, changing the rate from nil and providing that the revised duty operates immediately under a declaration made under the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act, 1931.

Excise duty changes impose specified rates on a range of tobacco products and alter duty treatment for crude petroleum.
Proposals set out notification based excise duty rates for multiple tobacco tariff lines-imposing per unit and percentage levies on specified categories of cigarettes, biris, smoking mixtures, chewing tobacco, snuff, tobacco extracts and other manufactured tobacco or substitutes-replacing prior nil treatment. They also remove a nominal per tonne excise charge on crude petroleum produced under production sharing contracts and certain exploration blocks, with each tariff line assigned a precise levy form to be applied by notification.

Special additional excise duty increase on petrol and diesel imposes higher fuel taxes immediately under provisional collection.
Amendment raises the scheduled rates of Special Additional Excise Duty on petrol and diesel by modifying the Eighth Schedule to the Finance Act, 2002 via the Finance (No. 2) Bill, 2019; the change is to take effect immediately under a provisional collection declaration, with the operative rates to be prescribed by subsequent notification.

Road and Infrastructure cess increase on petrol and diesel takes effect immediately under Provisional Collection of Taxes framework.
The Finance (No. 2) Bill, 2019 amends the Sixth Schedule to the Finance Act, 2018 to increase the Road and Infrastructure cess as an additional excise duty on motor spirit (petrol) and high speed diesel from Rs. 8 per litre to Rs. 10 per litre, with the amendment declared effective from 6 July 2019 under a provisional collection declaration and to be implemented by notification.

Excise duty increases on petrol and diesel under Finance Bill raise effective tax rates for fuel levies.
The Finance (No.2) Bill, 2019 increases the effective rates of Special Additional Excise Duty and Road and Infrastructure Cess on motor spirit (petrol) and high speed diesel by substituting the prior per litre rates with higher per litre rates for each levy, with the cess expressly levied as an additional duty of excise.

Service tax retrospective exemptions expanded to specified state licence fees, select IIM programmes, and upfront lease consideration.
The Finance (No. 2) Bill, 2019 proposes retrospective Service Tax exemptions: (i) State Government consideration for grant of liquor licences for 1 April 2016-30 June 2017; (ii) specified Indian Institutes of Management educational programmes (excluding Executive Development Programmes) for 1 July 2003-31 March 2016; and (iii) upfront amounts paid for long term (thirty years or more) leases of development plots by State industrial/majority government entities for 1 October 2013-30 June 2017.

Dispute resolution amnesty scheme introduced to settle legacy central excise and service tax cases under the Finance Bill.
The Finance (No.2) Bill, 2019 introduces a Sabka Vishwas Legacy Dispute Resolution Scheme, a dispute resolution cum amnesty mechanism to resolve and settle legacy Central Excise and Service Tax cases through provisions in clauses 119-134 of the Bill, establishing a time bound framework for admission and settlement of eligible legacy disputes.

GST amendment effective dates clarified: central amendments effective on enactment while finance-bill changes await notification.
Amendments carried out through the Finance (No.2) Bill, 2019 take effect on the date of its enactment unless otherwise specified; amendments carried out in the Finance Bill, 2019 will come into effect from the date when they are notified, concurrently with corresponding amendments to the Acts passed earlier by the States and Union territories with legislature.

National Appellate Authority for Advance Ruling clarifies binding advance rulings, procedural powers and remedies under amended CGST framework.
The amendments create a National Appellate Authority for Advance Ruling with defined composition, powers to regulate procedure and exercise civil court powers, time bound disposal and limited rectification capacity; its advance rulings are binding on distinct applicants and registered persons with the same permanent account identifier and void if obtained by fraud. They also introduce an alternative composition scheme for service/mixed suppliers with specified turnover limits, clarify treatment of interest/discount for turnover computations, raise the exclusive goods exemption threshold, mandate Aadhaar authentication for specified taxpayers, require specified electronic payment options, permit electronic cash ledger head transfers and authorize Commissioner extensions for certain filings, while calibrating interest charging and refund disbursement, and enhancing anti profiteering penalty authority.

Intergovernmental transfer of IGST collections enabled to reflect electronic cash ledger head reallocation between Centre and States.
A new provision adds intergovernmental transfer mechanics to the IGST Act to govern movement of amounts between the Centre and States arising from reallocation of funds between heads within the electronic cash ledger, providing the legal basis for adjusting IGST-related balances and transferring sums to reflect such ledger head transfers.

Retrospective GST exemption: Uranium Ore Concentrate exempted from central, integrated and UT tax for 2017 period.
The Finance (No. 2) Bill, 2019 retrospectively amends Notification No. 2/2017 under the Central, Integrated and Union Territory GST rate schedules to exempt Uranium Ore Concentrate from Central Tax, Integrated Tax and Union Territory Tax for the period from 1st July, 2017 to 14th November, 2017, effectuating a removal of tax incidence on that good by amendment of the respective notifications.