Taxing ocean freight - An ill-conceived move?

1. Transportation of goods from the mother vessel to the jetty onshore, has two aspects (I)that activity of bringing the goods into India from a place outside India i.e. import (ii) the service aspect.
The competence of levying of taxes on two or more aspects of same transaction is well accepted principle in taxation.
2. Providing a level playing field to domestic shipping lines will promote Make in India. Any increase in cost of imports also acts a non-tariff barrier for imports thus protecting domestic industry. Further increase in cost of pules, edible oil and other essential items can be countered by providing Direct benefit transfer to the poor using the Aadhar based DBT platform.

15/03/2016