To help them, Mr Vajpayee has offered to cut the excise and customs duties on information-technology-related equipment to close to zero.
What is needed is a simpler structure, less riddled with discretion-based exemptions, and a broader tax base.In particular, the government needs to fulfil its pledge (and that of the previous administration) to introduce a nationwide value-added tax to replace the current hotch-potch of sales taxes and excise and customs duties.
Beyond that, there's a grab bag of excise and customs taxes, dribs and drabs, and various odds and ends coming to $292 billion.
This January, a series of raids on eight factories in India uncovered 1,200 kilograms of ketamine that India's Central Board of Excise and Customs believed was being produced for foreign markets such as the UK.
The ability of manufacturers to keep prices under critical price points greatly reduces the impact of increases in excise and customs duty.
The packaging of cigarettes in small quantities (in the increasingly popular packs of 20s) however provides an upfront purchase price lower than the typical pack of 25s and considerably lower than the very large packs of 40s and 50s, recommended retail prices for which have been well over $20 since a large increase in excise and customs duty in April 2010 [ 18].
Since November 1999, excise and customs duty in Australia is levied as a specific duty on each cigarette, with an equivalent duty per kilogram of tobacco in the case of roll-your-own smoking tobacco and cigars and cigarettes weighing more than 0.8 grams [ 15].
Companies faced with increases in excise and customs duty are still able to cushion smokers against the effects of duty increases by increasing margins on some brands in order to cover lower margins on other brands that might be attractive to price sensitive smokers.
Gone will be the state levies on entertainment and gambling, as well as the centre's "additional excise duty", "additional customs duty" and its close relation, "special additional duty", otherwise known as SAD.This rationalisation promises a number of benefits for businesses and taxmen alike.
Second-hand cars in Kenya are expensive because customs, excise and VAT add a huge amount to the price tag.
In this case, the Court was asked to inquire into the decision of the Director-General of Customs and Excise to impose customs duty on certain goods that had been imported into the country by the applicant but allegedly not re-exported.
