Customs duties to be hiked on many items

The budget could manage net revenue of Rs 25,000 crore by raising customs duty on items such as cashew kernels, metal fittings, mounting for furniture, auto parts and optical fibre cable even as it slashed levy on items that are used as raw materials and capital goods, revenue secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey said.

The net revenue gain in direct taxes is, however, Rs 6,000-7,000 crore as the budget proposed to slash corporate tax while raising taxes on high net-worth individuals, he said, addressing a press conference after the budget was presented in Parliament by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

“Make in India is a cherished goal. In order to provide domestic industry a level playing field, basic customs duty is being increased on items such as cashew kernels, PVC, Vinyl flooring, tiles, metal fittings, mountings for furniture, auto parts, certain kinds of synthetic rubbers, marble slabs, optical fibre cable, CCTV camera, IP camera, digital and network video recorders etc,” the finance minister said in Parliament.

Exemptions from custom duty on certain electronic items, which are now being manufactured in India, are being withdrawn, she said. “Further, end use-based exemptions on palm stearin, fatty oils, and exemptions to various kinds of papers are also being withdrawn,” she said. “So far as corporate tax is concerned, we continue with phased reduction in rates. Currently, the lower rate of 25% is only applicable to companies having annual turnover up to 250 crore. I propose to widen this to include all companies having annual turnover up to ~400 crore,” she said.

To promote domestic manufacturing, customs duty reductions are being proposed on certain raw materials and capital goods, she said. “These include certain inputs of CRGO sheets, amorphous alloy ribbon, ethylene di-chloride, naphtha, wool fibres, inputs for manufacture of artificial kidney and disposable sterilised dialyser,” she said.