I-T raid on half-a-dozen jewellers at Zaveri Bazaar

In an effort to curb black money from the system, govt has discovered an innovative way to force jewellers declare their additional gold stocks

With the deadline for disclosing undeclared income under the Income Declaration Scheme (IDS) approaching, the Income Tax (I-T) department has discovered an innovative way to force jewellers declare their additional gold stocks.

The local division of the I-T department raided near half a dozen jewellers at Zaveri Bazaaer here on Wednesday searching instances of tax evasion or finding occurrences of undeclared income or stock holding, if any. I-T raided jewellers are mostly large wholesaler of specific variety of jewellery.

According to a jeweller, the I-T department asks about excess stocks, if any, immediately after entering into the premise. In case the jeweller agrees with some excess stocks even if without actual verification of existing stocks, then the I-T official asks the concerned jeweller to pay the applicable tax. Thus, I-T department does not cross check the stock declared by the jeweller with the actual available stock.

In case, however, the jeweller denies having any excess stock, the I-T officials start searches of papers with physical stocks, the jeweller said.

To curb black money from the system, the government has urged the citizen to declare their undisclosed income by September 30 to prevent penal actions including heavy monetary penalty and periodic custody.