Budget 2013-14: Excise dept mulls appointing cost accountants for cost data

The auto industry has very little option at present. The auto sector is hoping that there is going to be a clarification on this contentious issue in the Budget. Following the Supreme Court judgement on Fiat in August last year there were slew of notices that were issued to other carmakers.

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At that point in time the feeling in the industry was that there will be an end to this because they had led a senior level delegation to the Finance Ministry as a part of the pre-budget consultations. They were hoping that there will be no notices that will be issued following the first set.

Sources say about a week ago also the excise department has been sending follow-up notices wanting companies to really expedite the information that they had sought for. One of the letters to one of the really big Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) in the country said that they were also being asked by the higher officials to cull out the information at the earliest.

All of this has got the industry very concerned and auto industry sources add they have written a letter to the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) where they have essentially said to restrain their local geographical Excise Departments to stop issuing such notices.

Senior Tata Motors official and Pawan Goenka, President of Mahindra & Mahindra are all very concerned because their principal worry lies in the fact that if they give this cost data which was very, very sensitive what guarantee is there that this data will not again be leaked to some other carmaker?