Delhi jewellers shut shop for 5th day after I-T survey of sales

Gold and jewellery shops in the national capital remained closed for the 5th day on Tuesday after the income tax department conducted surveys following reports of alleged profiteering and tax evasion by traders in the last-minute conversion of demonetised notes on the night of 8 November.

Tax authorities across the country are keeping close vigil on jewellers to check if sales are being broken down into sub-Rs2 lakh to avoid quoting of PAN.

After the government banned old Rs500 and Rs1,000 notes, gold and bullion are said to be favoured route for laundering of ill-gotten wealth.

I-T officials carried out survey operations on jewellery shops in at least four locations in the Delhi-NCR region, including Dariba Kalan, Chandni Chowk and Karol Bagh, on 10 November.

Most jewellery houses in the NCR remained closed since 11 November.

Meanwhile, reports said officials of the Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence (DGCEI), under the finance ministry, has sent notices to these jewellers seeking details of gold sales.

Gold was sold as high as Rs50,000 per ten grams last week against the market price of Rs31,000 as gold and bullion was said to be used to convert the debunked currency. A 20-40 per cent haircut in the value of defunct currency was also being resorted to launder black money.

"PAN is mandatory for jewellery sale of over Rs2 lakh. We are keeping a watch on jewellers to see if they are breaking their sales into parts of less than Rs2 lakh," CBDT chairman Sushil Chandra told reporters.

Necessary action and penalty, he said, would be initiated wherever violations are found.

"Whether it is deposit of cash or sale of goods in old currency note, we are keeping a watch and taking steps," he said after inaugurating the CBDT pavilion at IITF.

The government is reportedly also looking at asking jewellers to deposit old high-value currency notes by a set date to prevent money laundering. Also, there are fears that jewellers could show backdated cash sales.

While jewellers and diamond traders usually show bills every week while depositing cash generated through sales, very high value deals in cash are often split in smaller amounts or stolen PAN number is cited on bills.

Industry insiders say the modus operandi is to use unaccounted gold stock against receipt of demonetised currencies at a heavily discounted rate.

Jewellers stayed open into the early hours soon after the Tuesday night announcement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to withdraw old Rs500 and Rs1,000 notes in the nation's biggest crackdown on black money, corruption and counterfeit currency.

As much as 250 kg gold was reportedly sold in Mumbai within a few hours of the announcement.

The finance ministry has ordered all its revenue intelligence agencies to join the crackdown on jewellers and hawala operators besides tracking movement of demonetised currency notes.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Directorate General of Central Excise intelligence (DGCEI) have now joined the income tax department in the crackdown.

The Income Tax department has sent around 600 notices to jewellers across 25 cities asking them to detail daily sales between 7 and10 November.

Teams of DGCEI officials are also visiting major jewellery stores and their manufacturing units to serve notices seeking these details, sources said.

Jewellers in major cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Bhopal, Vijaywada, Nashik and Lucknow are initially under the scrutiny of the DGCEI officials, they said, adding that this exercise can later be extended to other cities too.

Gold import into the country had fallen by 55 per cent to $7.88 billion in the first half of fiscal 2016-17.