NEW DELHI, Dec 6: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday that the government’s next key reform initiative will focus on overhauling the customs duty system. Speaking at the 23rd Hindustan Times Leadership Summit (HTLS 2025), she emphasized the need for transparency and efficiency in customs operations.
“We made sure that income tax is no longer a tiresome exercise,” Sitharaman said, recalling the era when tax administration was often described as “tax terrorism.” She added that while income tax rates were not the problem, the administration of the system was “painful, sometimes agonising.”
The Finance Minister highlighted the government’s move to a faceless income tax system, which simplified and digitized the process, making compliance easier for taxpayers. She said similar virtues—transparency, simplicity, and efficiency—will now be applied to customs operations, calling it “the next big assignment.”
Acknowledging challenges in curbing illegal trade, Sitharaman noted that smuggling remains a serious problem, but steady reductions in customs duties over the past two years set the stage for broader reforms.
Sitharaman, an economist and Jawaharlal Nehru University alumnus, has been a key figure in India’s economic policy-making under PM Narendra Modi. She has served in multiple ministerial roles, including Minister of State for Commerce and Industry (2014), Defence Minister (2017), and Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister since 2019, steering reforms in taxation, investment, and trade.