Chennai: Gold retailers in the city are up in arms against the Centre's proposal to make it mandatory to quote PAN for any purchase or sale exceeding the value of Rs 1 lakh. Pressing for rollback of the measure announced in the Union Budget, the Madras Jewellers and Diamond Merchants Association (MJDMA) has planned to meet Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and raise the issue.
"It has been announced that for transactions of over Rs 1 lakh, (obtaining) pan card number or know your customer norms have been made mandatory. This is going to be implemented along with GST next year. We are not accepting it", said MJDMA President Jayanthilal Challani. Elaborating, he said, "the Government is moving ahead in implementing Goods and Services Tax by next April. Our request is you (Centre) make whatever modifications you want in GST. But our request is that the existing practice should be continued.
"We are planning to meet Finance Minister. We are yet to get the dates," he said on the sidelines of a curtain raiser event for the three-day 11th edition of Gem and Jewellery India International Exhibition 2015 scheduled to be held here from March 20. According to him, PAN details or KYC norms are not mandatory for purchases of bullion up to Rs two lakh and for purchase of gold up to Rs 5 lakh.
As part of measures to curb black money, the Finance Minister in his Budget speech said quoting of PAN is being made mandatory for any purchase or sale exceeding the value of Rs 1 lakh. More than 300 exhibitors, including representatives from Turkey, Middle East, Hong Kong, Thailand, would take part inthe B2B expo", UBM India, Senior Group Director, Ravi Saneja said.
UBM India and MJDMA are jointly organising this event. He said due to the increase in demand for purchase of diamonds, this year over 20 per cent of participation will be from diamond jewellers compared to last year.
