Page 10 - Banking Finance March 2025

ROUNDUP

any officer and establishes a more
transparent arrest procedure.
"The grounds of arrest must be ex-
plained to the arrested person and also
furnished to him in writing as an An-
nexure to the Arrest Memo.
Acknowledgement of the same should
Ò»©­ be taken from the arrested person at
the time of service of the Arrest
Memo," CBIC said.
As per the earlier guideline issued in
August 2022, GST officers were re-
quired to explain to the arrested per-
son the grounds of arrest, and note the
25% Laptops shipped in '24 GenAI ready same in the arrest memo.
The global PC market had a 3.7% YoY shipment growth in Q4 2024, thanks to "The revised guidelines are poised to
the year-end holiday season and China's subsidy policy, according to bring about a paradigm shift in the
Counterpoint's preliminary data. Besides, there was a steady flow of PC or- enforcement mechanism under the
ders from enterprises, which was driven by ongoing corporate IT upgrades GST law by curbing arbitrary arrests
before the end of Windows 10 support by October 2025. and deterring coercive practices. Re-
For the full year of 2024, PC vendors shipped 253 million PCs, up 2.6% from quiring officers to substantiate arrests
2023, thanks to both the impending end of Windows 10 support and the first with detailed reasoning ensures that
wave of AI PCs in H2 2024. We believe the PC market has recovered to nor- enforcement actions are predicated on
mal seasonality and entered a new phase after the launch of AI PCs in 2024. concrete evidence and not subjective
discretion. This will safeguard honest
PC brands introduced several AI PC solutions in 2024, starting with models
taxpayers from unwarranted harass-
based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite series, followed by AMD's Strix Point
ment and foster greater trust in the
and Intel's Lunar Lake. Lenovo, Asus and Acer showed healthy growth above
tax administration," said Tushar
the market average.
Kumar, Advocate, Supreme Court of
HP saw flattish growth, while Apple grew modestly after a weak first half off- India.
set by the launch of the new MacBook Pro in the year-end. Dell had a tough
year with little activity on the enterprise side. We expect 2025 to be a good Govt mulls mandatory
year for PC brands as the commercial markets increase their orders as a result
of the sunset of Windows 10 and the increased model offerings for AI PCs. hallmarking of silver
jewellery
GST officers must explain knowledging their understanding of
these grounds, according to a set of Food and Consumer Affairs Minister
'grounds of arrest': CBIC Pralhad Joshi asked the Bureau of In-
new guidelines issued on January 13 by
GST officers are now required to pro- central board of indirect taxes and dian Standards (BIS) to consider imple-
vide a clear explanation of the customs (CBIC). menting mandatory hallmarking for
"grounds of arrest" to a taxpayer, who silver and silver artefacts, following
is being placed under arrest for alleged The aim is to safeguard honest taxpay- consumer demands.
tax evasion, fake invoices, fraudulent ers from unwarranted harassment and The work in this direction has already
input tax credit etc of value exceeding foster greater trust in the tax admin- started and the BIS is also holding con-
Rs 5 crore. istration. sultations with stakeholders, Joshi told
The officer should also obtain written The guidelines also prevent arbitrary reporters on the sidelines of the 78th
confirmation from the taxpayer ac- arrests of GST registered persons by BIS Foundation Day event.

BANKING FINANCE | MARCH | 2025 | 9