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A majority of respondents in a survey of about 40,000-50,000 taxpayers, commissioned by the Central Board of Excise & Customs (CBEC), said that policies at the ground-level had become “liberal and friendly” in the past two years.
“The key question of the survey was – ‘Do you feel a perceptible change in policies of the CBEC by way of becoming liberal and friendly to the taxpayer?’ An overwhelming number of respondents, 72 per cent, responded with a “yes”,” a statement issued by the Finance Ministry said.
The survey, outsourced by industry chamber FICCI to KPMG, was done to get a feedback on the impact of reforms undertaken by CBEC during the last two years, such as single-window interface for facilitating trade, digitisation of documents, e-monitoring among others, also said that 45 per cent of the respondents saw an “attitudinal change in senior functionaries (commissioner level and above); and 51 per cent acknowledged an improvement at the ground level, at the level of inspectors and above.”
“This should come as heartening news for India Inc, as it is the inspector raj which is considered as the most stubborn stumbling block to improving the tax environment,” said the survey, which comes in the wake of allegations of “tax terrorism” cited as a barrier to entry of foreign investment in manufacturing.
The survey said of most interest to foreign businesses were responses to reforms undertaken in SVB (transfer pricing in customs) where 89 per cent respondents indicated improvements. Similarly, responses on legislative changes carried out to warehousing in the Budget also elicited a positive response from 85 per cent respondents.
Considering the Make in India initiative, central excise has been a major area of focus, where 92 per cent respondents acknowledged CBEC’s success in simplification of customs & excise business processes, the Ministry said.
About 30 per cent of the respondents in the survey were from Maharashtra, followed by Delhi with 11 per cent. Sector-wise, the 46 per cent respondents were from the service industry, 39 per cent from manufacturing and 15 per cent from the trading community.
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