By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, NOV 23, 2013: CENTRAL Board of Excise & Customs (CBEC) has set-up a Pavilion at Hall No. 18 of Pragati Maidan during the ongoing India International Trade Fair, 2013. The Pavilion was inaugurated by Ms Praveen Mahajan, Chairperson, Central Board of Excise & Customs in the presence of other members of the Board.

Focus of the Pavilion this year is to popularize/publicise Service Tax Voluntary Compliance Encouragement Scheme (VCES) announced by the Union Finance Minister P.Chidambaram in his Budget speech. It has come into effect on 10th May, 2013. The objective of the scheme is to encourage disclosure of Tax dues and compliance of Service Tax law by the persons who have not paid service tax dues for the period from October, 2007 to December, 2012, either on account of ignorance of law or otherwise. It is golden opportunity for such persons to pay the ‘tax dues' and come clean. On payment of the tax dues relating to the said period, there will be complete waiver of interest, penalty and other proceedings/ consequences.

A Service Tax VCES help desk has been set-up at the Pavilion to accept declarations under this Scheme and also to answer any queries/clarification from the trade/ assesses related to this scheme. Besides a help desk has also been set-up for answering any queries/ clarifications related to any issue on Customs and Central Excise.

Various rounds of quiz contests with questions on VCES are being held at the Pavilion and the persons giving the correct answers are given “VCES ke Laddoo” as gift. In addition, painting contests, mime, face painting and magic shows are being held to attract public. Kids are presented with certificates with their photographs along with gifts for participating in these competitions. There has been a phenomenal response to our pavilion with huge footfalls.

Since IITF is one of the largest trade fairs in the world both in terms of exhibitors and visitors participation and has evolved its unique character as an iconic national event, therefore, setting-up a Pavilion during the IITF, 2013 has provided a great platform to the CBEC to publicize the VCES Scheme which , in turn, will also help in getting more response.