PAN a must to buy jewellery worth Rs 5 lakh or more

Be ready to mandatorily flash your PAN card, for any purchase of jewellery worth Rs 5 lakh (Rs 500,000) or more from Friday -- a move that would help the tax department keep an eye on such high value transactions.

As per the amendments in the income tax rules, coming into effect from July 1, quoting PAN (Permanent Account Number) will be mandatory for any payment of Rs 5 lakh or more for purchase of bullion or jewellery.

High-value purchase of jewellery, among valuables, have often been feared to be a much favoured route for circulation of black money and quoting of PAN would help the tax authorities in tracking such transactions.

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Recently, the Reserve Bank of India had also asked the banks to consider the jewellers and bullion dealers as high-risk customers and to keep an enhanced vigil on their transactions.

The business transactions of jewellers and bullion dealers are highly cash intensive in nature and it is feared that they could be used for flow of black money into the system.

In order to check any possible money laundering, the banking sector regulator in January wrote to banks and financial institutions to treat the accounts of entities dealing in the jewellery and bullion trade as 'high-risk'.

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Besides jewellery purchase of Rs 5 lakh and above, furnishing of PAN would be mandatory for some other transactions also with effect from tomorrow.

These include issue of a debit card by any bank, as against the current practice of the PAN being asked for issuing credit cards only.

The payment of Rs 50,000 or more in a year for life insurance premium would also require PAN from Friday.

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The transactions that already require PAN include sale or purchase of any immovable property valued at Rs 5 lakh or more, sale or purchase of motor vehicles other than two-wheelers and bank deposits exceeding Rs 50,000.

These also include telephone connection applications, opening of bank accounts, hotel an restaurant bills of over Rs 25,000 and mutual fund investments of Rs 50,000 and above, among others.