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Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs

the nodal national agency responsible for administering Customs, GST, Central Excise, Service Tax & Narcotics in India

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 24, 2026
Entity authorityQ5060461
Source-derived summary

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), is a statutory body under the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, Government of India. It oversees the administration of Indirect Taxes, including Customs duties, Excise duties, and the Goods and Services Tax (GST). CBIC's function also extends to prevention of smuggling, illicit financial activities, and regulation and control of Narcotics through its attached/subordinate offices.

The Customs & Central Excise department was established in the year 1855 by the then British Governor General of India, to administer customs laws in India and collection of import duties/land revenue. It is one of the oldest government departments in India.

Currently, the Customs and Central Excise/GST department comes under the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, Government of India. The agency is staffed by Inspectors/Superintendents (Group B) selected through Staff Selection Commission (SSC) conducted matric level, higher secondary level, executive officers through Combined Graduate Level (CGL) exams and IRS officers (Group A) through Civil Services Examination who start their careers as Assistant Commissioners/Directors in the field with a few senior- most officers who become Chairperson/Members of CBIC/CESTAT/Settlement Commission.

Organizational structure

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC) is headed by a chairperson and consists of six members.

Member (Customs)

Member (Tax Policy & Legal)

Member (GST, Central Excise & Service Tax)

Member (Administration & Vigilance)

Member (IT & Taxpayer Services)

Member (Compliance Management)

Hierarchy & designation of CBIC

The designations and time-scales within the Customs & CGST are as follows after cadre restructure:

Duties

CBIC administers indirect taxes such as GST, Customs, and the erstwhile Central Excise, Service Tax laws.

Goods & Services Tax/Central Excise/Service Tax

Collection of Goods & Services Tax (GST) and previously Central Excise Duty and Service Tax.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs” is the nodal national agency responsible for administering Customs, GST, Central Excise, Service Tax & Narcotics in India. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Central, Board and Indirect, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1855—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1964-01-01. For this dossier, Central, Board and Indirect is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “the nodal national agency responsible for administering Customs, GST, Central Excise, Service Tax & Narcotics in India” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5060461. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1855.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs primary sources, Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs archive and Central research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.