Renaming CBEC as CBIC may take a while

With excise duty alongside nearly a dozen other central and state levies being taken over by the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the ambit of the CBEC is set to change and widen.

So far, it has administered central excise and Customs duties. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in late March had approved the re-organisation of field formations of the CBEC for implementation of GST, as per which the body is being renamed as the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC).

This requires legislative approval as the government has to amend the mother Act, which is the Central Boards of Revenue (CBR) Act, 1963. Also, amendments are required in the Central Excise Act, 1944, the Customs Act, 1962, and more recently notified the Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST) Act and the GST Compensation (Compensation to States) Act, among others.

"The amendments would be necessary in these Acts as the Central Board of Excise and Customs is mentioned in certain provisions. This has to be replaced with CBIC.

Besides, there will be certain other Acts which mention CBEC. We also have to put in one line in the amendments that wherever CBEC is mentioned, it will be replaced automatically by CBIC," an official told PTI.

The amendments may be introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament, which is slated to begin from July 17.

As per the CBR Act, the central government, in place of the Central Board of Revenue, will constitute two separate boards of revenue to be called the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC), and each such Board will be subject to the control of the central government. The CBIC will have 21 zones and GST Taxpayer Services Commissionerates.