Following the key announcement that the Government of India set up a new Analytics and Risk Management wing under the indirect taxes body, now the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) has been renamed as Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC).
The new changes will reportedly take place in April, after this year’s budgetary exercise gets the Parliament’s approval.
Two new Directorates — Directorate General of Analytics and Risk Management (DGARM) and Directorate of International Customs will now fall under the CBIC. They will aggressively use data mining and data analytics to nab tax evaders.
In January this year, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said that the (then) CBEC needed to fulfil a twin challenge of robust detection to avoid tax evasion as well as facilitation of trade.
“The customs department has an important twin role to play. You have to have detection machinery in place so as to ensure that tax evasion does not take place, and at the same time be a trade facilitator which makes entry into borders easy,” Jaitley had said.
According to a memorandum issued by the DGARM in July last year, the authority was designed to provide “24×7 operational risk interdiction supports” to the CBIC. The statement added, “The data analytics and processing coupled with intelligence inputs would inter-alia provide CBIC national and sub-national perspective for policy formulation. The field formations of CBIC are expected to gainfully and effectively utilise the data and other inputs shared by the DGARM.”
In fact, a National Targeting Centre has also been set up to analyse risks — and especially monitor the risky goods and passengers crossing the borders.
Among other changes, the National Academy of Customs, Excise and Narcotics will renamed as National Academy of Customs, Indirect Taxes and Narcotics. It is set to provide regular training to officers and staff of CBIC, as well as the state GST officers.
