Says items used by common people are being taxed, rules out rollback of 1% excise duty The government has ruled out rollback of 1% excise duty on gold jewellery levied in the budget, calling it a tax on a luxury item. Finance minister Arun Jaitley said gold cannot remain out of the tax net when goods used by common people were being taxed. Jaitley referred to items like erred to items like soap, toothpaste, razor, pencil, ink, fruit juices and baby food attrac ting excise duty. “Why should the luxury items be exempted from tax,“ he said, re sponding to a cal ling attention mo tion in Rajya Sab ha. He added that even imitation jewellery attracted 6% excise duty .Rubbishing Congress leader Raj Babbar's charge that government was killing the trade and hurting local artisans, the finance minister reasoned that trade had not developed to the extent that annual turnovers of small jewellers had crossed Rs.6 crore.“This is implemented on big chains,“ he said, adding it was a step towards