Skip to main content

Jaitley stays firm on excise duty on jewellers

By
Refusing to relent on excise duty levy on non-silver jewellery goods, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday said a “luxury item” cannot remain out of tax ambit when taxes need to be paid on many essentials.
A large section of jewellers and bullion traders have been on strike for over a month seeking withdrawal of one per cent excise duty on non-silver jewellery items.
They are also opposing the  mandatory quoting of the personal account number by customers for transactions of Rs two lakh and above. "How can a luxury item remain out of tax when essential items like cement, cloth and many others have to pay manufacturing tax? If we do not bring the goods and services tax (GST) on gold, taxation on other items will have to be increased," Jaitley said at a media interaction at the Press Club here.
He said there was no reason why luxury items should be exempted when the country was moving toward GST.
Jaitley said the Centre has given a benefit that excise would be similar to value-added tax on gold and has tried to allay fears that 'karigars' would be affected from the new taxation.
The Union Finance Minister in his Budget proposals on February 29 had announced levy of one per cent excise duty on non-silver jewellery.
The government had last month constituted a panel under former Chief Economic Advisor Ashok Lahiri to look into the demands of jewellers and the panel has been asked to submit its report within 60 days.
Business Standard,New Delhi, 11th April 2016

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Data storage norm splits digital payments industry

By
Data storage norm splits digital payments industry  India’s nascent digital payment industry could be thrown into disarray due to the demand by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) that all user data be stored within the country, fears an industry grouping, which has termed the decision as “heavy-handed”, even as others, including the country’s largest digital payment provider Paytm, have hailed the move.  In a bid to narrow the growing schism, the industry is planning to send a formal representation to the regulator highlighting its concerns, a top official told ET.  “We are trying to build a consensus on the issue," said the person adding that the representation to the central bank will be ready this week.  RBI on April 6, mandated all payment companies—global and local—to set up data storage facilities within India by October. The stringent six-month deadline has attracted the ire of several sections of the industry that fear it will lead to a disruption of wel...
18 comments
Read more

Sebi to finalise options in commodities today

By
The Commodity Derivatives Advisory Committee of the Securities and Exchange Board of India ( Sebi) will meet on Friday with senior officials of the latter, to give a final shape to the rules on options trading in commodity futures, beside revising the warehousing norms to ensure good delivery on settlement. The decision taken, after discussing with the advisory committee, will be placed before the regulator’s board, to finalise the regulations. According to knowledgeable sources, three commodities in each segment, agricultural and non- agricultural, have been proposed for introducing options. It appears commodities from the soya and guar segments are preferred in the former. From the non- agri segment, it is likely that gold, silver and crude oil will be finalised. All these These have better liquidity and both the National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange and the Multi Commodity Exchange, respectively, will be able to introduce the options. In the equity segments, options ar...
17 comments
Read more

E tailers global warehouses may come under tax net

By
E tailers  global warehouses may come under tax net Warehouses of e-commerce companies based in countries such as Australia, Japan, Italy,  Spain, the Netherlands, and Russia may not be exempted from paying the income tax in India  once the multilateral instrument (MLI) to prevent base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS)  comes into force. BEPS refers to the reporting framework mooted by the Organisation for Economic  Co-operation and Development (OECD) and signed by over 100 countries, including India, to  prevent exploiting gaps and mismatches in tax rules to shift profits by multinational  companies (MNCs) artificially to low-tax regimes. The representatives of 68 countries on June 7 this year signed an agreement (MLI) in Paris  to amend their tax treaties to bring them in alignment with measures to prevent BEPS.  However, there is still time for synchronising tax treaties with the multilateral  instrument. India has submitte...
17 comments
Read more