Jewellery makers shine as Govt relaxes excise duty rules

Shares of 9 jewellery retainers were up 0.78% to 8.6% at 10:39 IST after the government accepted the recommendation of a committee and relaxed the rules on excise duty on gold jewellery.

Shares of Gitanjali Gems were up 1.72% at Rs 41.50. Tara Jewels was up 8.6% at Rs 40.40. Titan Company was up 2% at Rs 412.55. Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri was up 2.89% at Rs 72.90. Rajesh Exports was up 0.78% at Rs 452.75. PC Jeweller was up 2.7% at Rs 381. Goldiam International was up 2.33% at Rs 81.15. Thangamayil Jewellery was up 1.18% at Rs 288. Vaibhav Global was up 1.71% at Rs 294.85.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 35.31 points or 0.13% at 27,779.87.

There will be no requirement for jewellers to submit any ground plan of the premises for taking excise registration. In case the invoice does not show excise duty separately, the value for VAT will be treated as cum duty value. The records maintained for state VAT and other private records showing details of inputs, stocks, manufactured goods, sold/exported goods, etc. will be accepted for excise purposes.

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. Repairs and alterations, which do not change the identity, character and use of the goods and do not result in a new item, will not attract excise duty. The government also said that excise duty will not be payable on the sale of traded goods. The government further said that no excise audit will be carried out for the first two years for units whose duty payment (cash plus credit) is less than Rs 1 crore i.e. turnover of manufactured goods less than Rs 100 crore.

The government has also decided to increase the SSI eligibility limit for the imposition of excise duty to Rs 15 crore from Rs 12 crore for manufacturers of articles of jewellery or parts of articles of jewellery or both. The SSI exemption limit has been raised Rs 10 crore from Rs 6 crore in a financial year and Rs 85 lakh for the month of March 2016.

It may be recalled that the government imposed excise duty of 1% without input and capital goods credit or 12.5% with input tax credit on articles of jewellery in the Union Budget 2016-17.