PRESS RELEASE

A delegation led by Mr. Mahender Singh, Director General of Directorate General of Performance Management, (Customs and Central Excise), Government of India (GoI) visited Bhutan for verification and quantification of the Excise Duty Refund claim of RGoB for the year 2015 from 19th to 30th June 2016. The meeting between the delegates of RGoB and GoI was held on 29th June 2016 to discuss and finalize the Excise Duty Refund. The Bhutanese delegation was led by Mr. Yonten Namgyel, Director, Department of Revenue and Customs. The total excise duty refund agreed for the year 2015 is Nu. 2,916,923,214 (Two Thousand Nine Hundred Sixteen Million, Nine Hundred Twenty Thousand, Two Hundred Fourteen) only.

The refund amount of excise duty for the year 2015 has increased by Nu. 973 million as compared to Excise Duty Refund for 2014. The increase is attributed to the improved recording system of the Department of Revenue and Customs and due to maintenance of documents in a manner desired by the GoI delegates. The increase in the excise duty refund is due to the increase in the import of HSD and MS petrol. The import of HSD and MS Petrol from India has increased by 4551.6 KL and 2364.40 KL respectively. The Excise duty has increased by 534.3 million as compared to 2014 ED claim.
Further the import of vehicles has increased by 4156 vehicles as compared to imports for 2014 from 2919 to 7075 in 2015. The increase in import has attributed to the increase of Excise duty by 348.8 million from 112 million in 2014 to 460.8 million in 2015.

Although most of the commodities are subject to levy of excise duty in India, there are specific exemptions issued by way of notifications by GoI on goods of special interests (petroleum products, metallic waste products, food items, tools, spares and accessories, medicine and medical equipments) etc. Furthermore, since imports made by Hydro Power Projects in Bhutan are exempted from excise duty at source, no excise duty refund claims are made for imports made by these projects.

Apart from the above issue, other issues of mutual interests were also discussed. The GoI delegation called on the Hon’ble Prime Minister and Hon’ble Finance Minister on 27th June 2016.

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