CHENNAI: Jewellery shops across Tamil Nadu remained shut on Saturday, the first day of the three-day nationwide strike against the Centre’s proposal to hike customs and excise duties and introduce a new tax on gold purchase. Industry insiders say the loss in trade over the three-day strike would amount to at least a whopping 10 tonnes of gold.As a result of the new tax tariff, the price of gold is expected to go up by around `800 per sovereign, which jewellers feel could drive customers away from investing in the sector and lead to rampant smuggling of the commodity.The jewellers are clear about their priorities. “The final burden of these unfair taxes are ultimately going to be borne by the customer. We are very clear we don’t want to deal with so many government departments,” says N Anantha Padmanabhan, regional chairman of the All India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation.He added that a similar regime that was in place across the country between the 1960s and 1990s had stifled the sector, and that the proposed taxes promise to be a repeat of those years. Anantha Padmanabhan also noted that a high tax tariff would inevitably lead to a rise in the smuggling of gold, a practice that was barely prevalent these days. “It is only going to lead to more black money,” he declares simply. The nationwide strike by jewellers has come in response to a proposal in the Union Budget to hike duty on import of gold from two to four per cent and levy of excise duty of 1 per cent on unbranded jewellery.
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