'Govt's duty cuts to impact customs; GST to help achieve FY23 tax target'

Robust GST collections will help achieve the FY23 revenue growth target on the indirect taxes front, despite the impact of duty cuts on central excise and customs mop-up, a top official said on Wednesday.

Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs Chairman Vivek Johri said the government's cuts in duties will make collections on customs and central excise challenging for the fiscal.

"If you look at indirect taxes as a whole, then I am pretty confident that we will meet the target. We are on track," he told reporters on the sidelines of an event here to mark the 60th anniversary of the Customs Act, 1962.

Johri said most of the growth has been coming from the Goods and Services Tax (GST), where revenues have been doing very well for the last two months.

"Given the very robust growth in GST, I think overall.. we will be able to meet the revenue targets," he said.

"There might be a bit of challenge in central excise revenue because of the scaling down of duties by the government earlier this year to curb inflation and there may be some challenge on the customs side also again because of reduction in duties on edible oils and some other items," he added.

Without mentioning the 3,000 kg haul at Mundra Port, Johri said the customs department has been able to pull off very big drug hauls because of data mining.