Amnesty scheme for customs may be announced in upcoming Budget: Experts

In a bid to reduce litigation, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the upcoming Budget may announce an Amnesty Scheme for customs to foster ease of doing business.

"The main asks of the industry would certainly be aligned with the objectives of the government and one objective of the government has been litigation reduction. On that front, having an amnesty scheme for customs especially covering pre-GST legacy taxes like additional duty, special additional duty has been one of the asks of the industry," Price Waterhouse & Co LLP managing director Anurag Sehgal said.

The government had in the past announced amnesty schemes for excise and service tax and even for the income tax but not for customs.

There are estimates that over 40,000 cases were pending in various courts and tribunals pertaining to customs duty alone.

Another consultancy firm EY India said customs litigations are pending at various forums for a very long time and the same require time and effort to be spent by both the taxpayer and the government in resolving them.

EY India also suggested that a one-time dispute/litigation resolution/settlement scheme should be introduced under the Customs Law to settle and resolve pending disputes.

According to Deloitte India partner Mahesh Jaising, the government should end long-drawn litigation to resolve long-standing disputes, alleviate the burdened judicial pipeline and upgrade the law to keep pace with technological advancements and international best practices.

"An amnesty scheme, along the lines of Sab ka Vishwas, will be a welcome decision. The industry has been waiting for such a scheme for years to address pending litigation matters under customs. This will especially help small businesses avoid past disputes and move ahead with a clean slate," Jaising said.

Another important wishlist of the industry on customs would be rate rationalisation to support the Make in India initiative, Sehgal said.

"You have PLI, Phased Manufacturing Programme coming up in many sectors. So rate rationalization would help promote investment in India," he said.

Besides, he said, the industry is expecting the review of exemptions.

Review of exemptions is very important because there are certain exemptions with sunset dates, which are very critical for sectors like, sustainability, green tech, maybe MSMEs, healthcare where industry wants that they should be reviewed and extended, he added.

Asked about the increase in duty on gold in view of rising import, Sehgal said, it was reduced only in the July Budget so tinkering with rate on this high value and sensitive item may not come so quickly.

However, he said, customs duty-related decisions can happen anytime and are not limited to the Budget.