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Excise duties to be revamped
Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha said he intended to simplify rules, procedures and collection system of excise duty to do away with inspector raj. Sinha emphasised there would be a special focus to check evasion. There are plans to reduce the penalty for evasion from 100 per cent to 50 per cent of the duty evaded. Officials said since tax evasion was particularly a problem with small scale industries the government may provide incentives to better tax compliance. Production based excise duties are unlikely to be expanded but may be revamped as it has managed to entangle the steel industry in a series of court cases. The levy of excise on the basis of the maximum retail price of products is likely to be expanded to cover more products.