Pranab likely to focus on taxes in CBEC meet today

New Delhi: Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is likely to lay down a road map for effective governance in the process of increasing indirect tax collections at the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) meet on Monday.

Pranab will inaugurate the 27th Annual Conference of Chief Commissioners and Directors General of Customs, Central Excise and Service Tax.

"The two-day conference will deliberate... issues relevant to indirect tax administration with the objective of laying down road maps for effective governance," said a finance ministry statement.

The conference is being held in the backdrop of government increasing both the excise duty and service tax by 2 per cent each to 12 per cent.

The conference would also discuss issues like –Negative List of Services and Common Tax Code of Central Excise and Service Tax.

Later, senior officials of the CBEC will have a brainstorming session to discuss the ways to strengthen collection of indirect levies.

The conference is being held in the backdrop of government increasing both the excise duty and service tax by 2 per cent each to 12 per cent.

The government has fixed indirect tax collection target at Rs 5.05 lakh crore for the current fiscal, an increase of about 27 per cent from 2011-12 target.

In April 2012, the indirect tax collection in form of excise duty, customs and service tax, was Rs 33,045 crore, up 10.4 per cent year-on-year.

The indirect tax mop-up in 2011-12 at Rs 3,92,781 crore was 99.6 per cent of the Budget Estimate.