GOA: A controversial tax on gold proposed in budget by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has had the ruling Congress party in a spin. A Congress upper house MP Shantaram Naikhas criticized his party's finance minister's proposed tax and duty on gold as a tax on Indian culture. “Indian marriages are a part of Indian culture and that no marriage can take place without gold ornaments being exchanged as a part of custom and tradition. The new tax proposals should not be construed as an impediment to marriages in India,” Naik has said in his letter to the finance minister. “The proposal included in the budget proposals of the Union Government, with respect to gold, has to be examined as a micro economic issue and not merely as a macro issue,” Naik has further said. Also a member of the finance ministry's consultative committee, Naik told Bikyamasr.com: “With the taxation as well as the customs duty on gold — which is in turn converted into ornaments – amounts to triple taxation when you add the local government's VAT”. Mukherjee in his budget had imposed an excise duty on gold, a one per cent duty on non branded jewelry and mandatory production of an income tax identity card while purchasing gold worth $ 3,900. Indians as a community have traditionally loved gold as a saving device as well as in form of jewelry and the country is the world's biggest consumer of gold, consuming over 900 tons annually, a large chunk of which is imported. The price of gold in India is approximately $ 560per 10 gms.
