Concept Consultants

Customs duties

1. No change in the peak rate of customs duty. 
2. Customs duty to be reduced from 10 per cent to 5 per cent on certain specified life saving drugs and on the bulk drugs used for the manufacture of such drugs. They are also being exempted from excise duty or countervailing duty. 
3. Specified parts of set top boxes and specified raw materials for use in the IT/electronic hardware industry to be exempted from customs duty. 
4. Customs duty on convergence products to be reduced from 10 per cent to 5 per cent to establish parity between devices used in the information/ communication sector and the entertainment sector   

Excise duty

1. General CENVAT rate on all goods reduced from 16 per cent to 14 per cent to give a stimulus to the manufacturing sector. 
2. Excise duty reduced on small cars from 16 per cent to 12 per cent and on hybrid cars from 24 per cent to the general revised rate of 14 per cent. 
3. Excise duty reduced on two wheelers and three wheelers from 16 per cent to 12 per cent. 
4. Excise duty is to be reduced from 16 per cent to nil on a few mass consumption items including composting machines, wireless data cards, packaged coconut water, tea and coffee mixes, and puffed rice. 
5. Excise duty being exempted on end-use basis, on refrigeration equipment (consisting of compressor, condenser units, evaporator, etc) above 2 TR (tone refrigeration) utilizing power of 50 KW and above. 
6. Excise duty being increased on packaged software from 8 per cent to 12 per cent, bringing at par with customized software attracting a service tax of 12 per cent.   

Service tax

1. Four services brought under service tax net namely,
   1. asset management service provided under ULIP,
   2. services provided by stock/commodity exchanges and clearing houses;   
   3. right to use goods, in cases where VAT is not payable;
   4. Customized software, to bring it on par with packaged software and other IT services.
2. Threshold limit of exemption for small service providers increased from Rs.8 lakhs per year to Rs.10 lakh per year.

Indian Market News Budget 2008, India Budget, Indirect Taxes