The taxman may knock on your door if you bought gold immediately before or after high denomination currency notes were withdrawn - even if you paid for the precious metal by cheque or credit card.

Excise authorities have issued notices to 600 jewellers to give details of stocks and sales for each day from Nov 7, a day before the announcement, to Nov 10, the India Bullion & Jewellers Association told ET. This might be one of the reasons to have caused jewellery and bullion demand to fall sharply in the days after the notices were issued last Friday.

Surendra Mehta, chartered accountant & secretary of IBJA, has said that the tax notice to 600 jewellers on November 11 asks them to furnish not just the quantity and value of gold they've purchased but also quantity and price details of sales to customers. Where the value and quantity of sales are high, excise authorities could simply ask jewellers to furnish customer details, irrespective of whether they (customers) purchased bullion or jewellery by cash or through online payment.The dates for the sales details range from November 7-10.

"It's spooking demand," said Mehta. "Even those willing to furnish PAN details to buy gold are desisting from buying for now or are simply buying on credit from jewellers they know for fears of receiving `queries' from tax authorities." Tax authorities suspect a significant number of buyers from many of the jewellers on those dates used scrapped Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes to buy gold. They could do this by paying inflated amounts for gold- up to Rs 50,000 per 10 gm against market rate of Rs 31,000.

Banks Go Slow on Gold Imports
Nominated banks have slowed down imports of gold on consignment basis as the DG Central Excise Intelligence's notice of Nov 11 seems to have driven the fear of god into many jewellers, some of whom are believed to have cancelled their orders. Rajan Venkatesh, ex-MD, ScotiaMocatta India, a leading gold supplier to jewellers here, confirmed the development, adding that slowdown amid the notice by banks was imminent.