This Tax Alert summarizes a recent guidance document[1] issued by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) on correlation of Customs Tariff between the year 2021 and 2022.
The World Customs Organization (WCO) Convention on Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System comes out with the Harmonised System (HS) Nomenclature in order to facilitate the standardization of trade documentation and the transmission of data.
The seventh edition of HS nomenclature (HS-2022) released by WCO shall come into force from 1 January 2022. This edition has significant changes to HS with 351 amendments at the six-digit level, covering a wide range of goods.
Necessary changes were brought in through the Fifth Schedule to the Finance Act, 2021, w.e.f. 1 January 2022, in order to align the First schedule of Customs Tariff Act, 1975 with HS 2022.
For ease of transition, CBIC has correlated the tariffs at the eight-digit level. The table in the document presents the correlation between the tariffs documenting the manner in which the commodities covered by 2021 tariff have been accommodated in the 2022 tariff. To understand the extent of changes between two versions, a ‘correlation code’ has also been provided against each entry.
