What is ECL requirement under Section 51A of Customs Act?
Its a Provision where an importer, exporter or person liable to pay any sum under the Customs Act has to make a non-interest bearing deposit with govt.
Need for ECL in customs?
Reforming payment process with help of technology & easing compliance related to clearance of goods. These deposit may be utilized by the trader(I/E) for making transaction-wise payments of various types.
Applicability:
Now that necessary IT infrastructure and integration facilities have been made and required confirmations have been obtained from the said 3 institutions, CBIC has decided to enable ECL in phases from 01.04.23.
ECL applicability:
|
Applicability in Phases |
Details |
Exceptions |
|
Phase I |
Starting from 01.04.2023 ECL deposit
requirement shall apply to all
payments required under customs excepting those cases given in column 3 |
1)
Deposits wrt Goods
imported or exported in Customs stations where Customs Automated System is
not in place 2)
Deposits wrt to
Accompanied baggage 3)
Deposits wrt Goods
imported or exported at International Courier terminals 4)
Deposits other than
those used for making electronic payment of a) any duty of customs, including cesses and surcharges
levied as duties of customs; b) Integrated tax; c) Goods and Service Tax compensation Cess d) Interest, penalty, fees or any other amount payable under the Act, or Customs Tariff Act, 1975. *ie : payment made through TR-6 challan at authorized bank counter in Customs locations, would be exempted from the provisions of section 51A, till such activity is also migrated to the ECL in later phases. |
|
Phase II |
Wrt ECL requirement applicability,
particular case of payment, which was previously exempted from deposit
requirement, is now added. Ie deposits with respect to goods imported or exported at International Courier terminals shall fall under the ambit of ECL from 01.05.2023 onwards. |
the exemption from deposits cases, listed above,
shall continue to be applicable : except for the deposits with respect to
goods imported or exported at International Courier terminals. |
Pre-requirements for ECL:
ECL provision requires the trader (I/E) to be registered at ICEGATE portal and create ECL Account.
In addition to importers/exporters, following category of ‘persons’ are also are also enabled in ECL.
· Customs brokers,
· couriers agents who are making payments on behalf of the importers/exporters
· Importers who are assigned Unique Identification Number (Special class of registration for Foreign diplomatic missions and embassies)