FM moves 2 bills to keep high levies on sin goods

Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday moved two bills in the Lok Sabha—one to levy capacity-based “Health Security se National Security Cess” on pan masala and the other to raise central excise on tobacco and tobacco products—to continue levying high duties on sin goods even after the GST compensation cess on them is phased out.

- Rajeev Jayaswal & Saubhadra Chatterji

While the Health Security se National Security Cess Bill, 2025 proposes to levy cess on the basis of self-declared production capacity of pan masala, the other one, the Central Excise (Amendment) Bill, 2025, is to raise levies on tobacco and its goods like cigarettes, cigars, cheroots, hookah, and chewing tobacco so that taxes on them do not fall after the GST compensation cess gets withdrawn.