Finally! After almost two and half years of amendment in Finance Act 2018, the Indian Government appoints a separate AAR for Customs matters. Earlier, the AAR appointed under Income Tax Laws were handling the applications under the Customs Act.
The operationalization of the Customs AAR is to be notified soon. Once the Customs AAR is notified, the Income Tax LAAR will no longer entertain any application under Customs Act.
We hope it would expedite the Advance Rulings both under Customs Act and Income Tax Act, which otherwise took an average of 12-18 months. It would also make it an effective alternative of Provisional Assessment.
This would also help foreign entities coming to India having some sort of certainty on customs duties front.
Source: CBIC
Contribution by: Yogesh Gaba (Managing Partner – GABA & CO.), to be found here: www.gabaco.in
