The government need not be informed on jewellery purchase of over Rs 50,000.

Good news for jewellers. Now PAN card and Aadhaar card are not needed for jewellery purchases above Rs 50,000, according to ANI. In a bid to give some relief to jewellers, the government on Friday decided to revoke the notification that extended provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, (PMLA) to jewellery purchases. Also, the government need not be informed on jewellery purchase of over Rs 50,000. This means that jewellers will not have to report data on buyers to the Financial Intelligence Unit. The decision was taken at the crucial GST Council meeting today.

In a slew of measures to provide relief to exporter hit hard by the implementation of Goods and Services Tax, the GST Council today decided to bring in an e-wallet facility after six months to speed up their refund claims, council member and Kerala Finance Minister Thomas Isaac said. Further, the government has also decided to exempt exporters from IGST for next six months, Thomas Isaac said on the sidelines of the crucial GST Council meeting underway in New Delhi.

Exporters need to pay IGST on import of their inputs, and claim refund from the government under rules. The transitional credit refund claim by taxpayers in the first month of July was staggering Rs 65,000 crore, including thousands of crores of rupees from exporters. The government estimated that only Rs 12,000 crore as valid. Rest of the amount is under scrutiny, which has made exporters nervous.

Exporters fear that if the GST refund of about Rs 65,000 crore does not start flowing immediately, it would get stuck and, further deteriorate their liquidity situation. The industry representatives, including exporters, who met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley last week raised this issue. An ‘e-wallet’ facility will allow exporters to get tax credit immediately after self-declaration post exports.

Thomas Isaac also confirmed that the GST Council has decided to raise the revenue threshold under the composition scheme to Rs 1 crore from Rs 75 lakh at present. This is expected to bring big relief to many more small businesses, who will have the convenience of paying a flat rate of 1%, 2% or 5%, and avoid a lot of paperwork. Albeit, this might also come as a disappointment to many, as it was being widely speculated that the limit would be raised to Rs 1.5 crore in today’s meeting.