Relief to jewellers; SSI exemption limit hiked to Rs 10 crore

New Delhi: In a relief to jewellers, the government increased excise duty exemption limit for small scale industry to Rs 10 crore from Rs 6 crore, waived the levy on sale of traded goods and relaxed various procedural norms.

Accepting the recommendations of a panel, the Finance Ministry Wednesday said no excise audit will be carried out, for the first two years, for units whose duty payment is less than Rs 1 crore (that is turnover of manufactured goods less than Rs 100 crore).

In view of large scale protests by jewellers following budget proposal of 1 percent excise duty on non-silver jewelleries, the government had set up a sub-committee of the high-level committee to interact with trade and industry on issues relating to compliance, maintenance of records and other administrative matters.

The government has also decided, independent of committee's recommendations, to increase for jewellery manufacturers "the SSI eligibility limit from Rs 12 crore to Rs 15 crore and the SSI exemption limit from Rs 6 crore to Rs 10 crore in a financial year and Rs 85 lakh for the month of March, 2016".

The government, in Budget 2016-17, had proposed 1 percent excise duty on jewellery without input credit or 12.5 percent with input tax credit on jewellery excluding silver other than those studded with diamonds and precious stones.

"Excise duty of 1 percent without input and capital goods tax credit or 12.5 percent with credit may apply to parts of articles of jewellery, made of platinum, gold and silver," the government said while accepting the sub-committee's recommendations submitted to it on June 23.

Also, there will be no requirement to submit any ground plan of premises for taking Excise registration and the excise duty on jewellery is payable at first sale invoice value.

"No excise duty may be payable on the sale of traded goods; (also) records maintained for State VAT and other private records, showing details of inputs, stocks, manufactured goods, sold/exported goods, etc to be accepted for excise purposes. Stock details to be maintained on weight and caratage basis," it said.

Movement of jewellery, which does not involve sale (for example, movement of jewellery, to be shown as samples, branch transfers not involving sale, for display in exhibition, for hallmarking, and for approval before sale) will not be liable to excise duty. No transit checks by excise officers.

"When a retail customer brings jewellery (other than in form of gold or any precious metal) to a jeweller which is converted into new jewellery by the jeweller or a job worker of such jeweller, excise duty will be payable only on value addition, including cost of additional materials and labour charges charged, subject to the maintenance of certain records," the government said.

Further, "an optional scheme may be prescribed" for jewellers who are not able to maintain separate physical stocks and/or records of manufactured and traded goods.

For availing the optional scheme, a principal manufacturer of jewellery should maintain separate stocks on weight and/or carat basis separately for -- silver studded jewellery, gold or platinum jewellery studded with diamonds and other gold or platinum jewellery.

The sub-commitee's recommendation of "no visit, search and seizure at job workers premises" has also been accepted by the government.

"No visit to premises of the principal manufacturer (jeweller), except on the basis of specific intelligence and with the approval of Commissioner or equivalent rank officer" is another major suggestion which has been accepted.

Summons may be issued only with the approval of Commissioner, the Ministry added.

In a tweet, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said: "The report of Laheri committee is also accepted by Govt in toto about procedural aspects of the levy". The sub-committee was chaired by Ashok Lahiri.