Gujarat Authority for Advance Ruling [Gujarat AAR]: In an application sought by a proprietary engaged in the business of manufacturing and supplying floor mats for cars made of Poly Vinyl Chloride (‘PVC’) material, the two-member bench of Amit Kumar Mishra and Milind Kavatkar, ruled that the appropriate classification of the concerned goods i.e., PVC foot mats is CTH 8708 and the applicable rate of Goods and Services Tax (‘GST’) would be 28 percent.
The applicant sought an advance ruling in respect to the appropriate classification and rate of GST applicable on supply of PVC floor mats for cars under the CGST and SGST.
For the appropriate classification of the floor mats made up of PVC for motor cars, the Authority relied on General Rules of Interpretation of the first schedule of the Customs Tariff Act, 1975 (‘CTA, 1975’) along with the General Explanatory Notes to the Harmonized System of Nomenclature (HSN) of CTA, 1975. The applicant contended that PVC floor mats for motor cars falls within ambit of CTH 390410, 3904 and 3918 was not legally tenable considering that CTH 390410 covers items made of PVC, not mixed with any other substances and the applicant’s product is an admixture of PVC leather, PU Foam, XLPE Foam.
The Authority said that goods, to fall within the limit of 3901 to 3914, must be in primary form, and the goods namely waste, parings, scrap and semi manufactured articles would appropriately be classified from CTH 3915 onwards and thus, the PVC floor mats for cars would not fall within the ambit of CTH 3904. The goods falling within the ambit of CTH 3918 include floor coverings of plastics, whether in form of self-adhesive in rolls or form of tiles, walls or ceiling coverings of plastics. The concerned impugned product, based on the nature of material used to manufacture PVC floor mats for cars gets excluded from section XI of CTH of Chapter 39 discussing term “plastic”. Thus, the concerned product being identified to be solely used within the four-wheel motor vehicles falls within the category of CTH 8708.
Thus, the authority held that the impugned goods i.e., PVC floor mats for cars is classified under CTH 8708 and attracts GST rate of 28 percent [14 percent each of CGST and SGST].
[Manishaben Vipulbhai Sorathiya, In re, 2023 SCC OnLine Guj AAR-GST 4, decided on 09-03-2023]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
Present for the Applicant: Advocate Nishant C. Shukla;