Is TCS judgement relevant to excise law?
By Bharati Hatwar, AdvocateBUDGET 2006 is still a hot topic of discussion amongst taxpayers, tax practitioners and the common man in various forums especially for its proposals on the Service Tax front, which also garnered a major share of media space forcing other equally important proposals to take a back seat. In this Budget for the first time the Finance Minister took a bold step to bring into the purview of Excise net the most happening sector in Indian Economy Information Technology Sector. However for the time being only packaged/canned software intended for sale or capable of being sold, off the shelf will be subjected to a nominal levy of 8% by amending the relevant chapters (detailed below) of the Central Excise Tariff Act, 1985 through Section 67(a) (and Section 67(b) applicable from 01.01.2007) of Finance Bill 2006. This levy of excise duty on packaged/canned software and the exemption granted to customised software vide Notification No. 6/06 CE dated 01.03.2006 is bound to
