He said the department has chose to accept Value-Added Tax documents and BIS documents for Central Excise registration and would take assesse friendly measures as much as possible.
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The Centre, however, has denied to roll back the budget proposal even as the strike by jewellers entered 14th day on Tuesday. Excise duty is to be paid on monthly basis and not on each clearance, he said and informed that with first installment of duty payment for the month of March, 2016 to be, paid by 31st March, 2016.
In budget 2016-17, an excise of duty of 1% without input tax credit and 12.5% with input tax credit was imposed on articles of jewellery with the exception of silver jewellery.
Addressing concerns raised by gold jewellers, Commissioner of Central Excise and Customs M Sreedhar Reddy said here on Tuesday that Excise officials would not meddle in the daily activities of jewellery manufacturers.
Meanwhile, the Finance Ministry has clarified that only jewellers with turnover of more than Rs 12 crore will be liable to pay 1 per cent excise duty on non-silver jewellery items. “The tax will be levied on manufacturing of jewellery-whether it is from fresh gold or gold melted from old jewellery”, Gupta said. Jewellers having turnover below Rs 12 crore during the preceding financial year will be eligible for exemption upto Rs six crore during the next financial year while small jewellers will be eligible for exemptions upto Rs 50 lakh for the month of March 2016, said the commissioner. “Small jewelers will be eligible for exemptions up to R50 lakh for the month of March 2016”, Sharma said adding that there was a substantial high small scale industries excise duty exemption limit of R6 crore a year for jewellery manufacturers against the nominal SSI exemption limit of R1.5 crore. The thrust will be on voluntary compliance of the new levy, with visits to units not being made in the normal course.
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Allaying fears of jewellers that it would be an “additional burden”, he said, “It (the levy) will be applicable to those jewellery manufacturers with a turnover of over Rs 12 crore in the previous year”.
