NEW DELHI: The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) is pushing hard to increase awareness on the procedures and new structure of taxation under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, as the date rollout of the new tax law nears.
Writing in the agency’s weekly newsletter, CBEC chief Vanaja N Sarna stated that the agency has sanctioned `1 crore to each of the agency’s 23 zones to fund the conduct of outreach programmes about the new tax regime. Sarna added that officials of each zone have been asked to carry out the outreach at the local level to explain the new structure as also its benefits, registration and compliance.
“To implement this, zonal chief commissioners have now been requested to utilise an amount of Rs 1 crore out of the funds under the ‘O.E. General’ head for this purpose,” she wrote. The funds, she pointed out, should be used for extensive outreach for educating taxpayers on legal and procedural aspects and the compliance expected under GST.
“At this point, I urge you to take this opportunity to project our department as the prime facilitator for taxpayers in their migration to GST. This is the time to make our presence felt. Efforts made in the direction of taxpayers’ education and facilitation in coming months will hold us in good stead with various stakeholders,” she told CBEC officials.
The CBEC’s hurry to get the necessary awareness in place is being spurred by the July 1 rollout that has been announced. The President recently gave his assent to four supporting legislations, putting the July 1 rollout on track. GST will subsume central levies like excise and Customs and state ones like VAT into a national unified sales tax.