Bharat Diamond bourse traders whine about higher cost

(The Economic Times) - Diamond traders who participate in auctions at Mumbai's Indian Diamond Trading Centre (IDTC) say they are not getting the stones directly from miners like De Beers, Rio Tinto and Alrosa due to taxation issues, increasing their cost as they need to procure those now from overseas hubs. To supply diamonds in India, the miners want the government to adopt turnover taxation like Belgium has done - under this regime, a fixed percentage of the turnover is levied as tax, instead of taxing the profits. But Indian tax authorities want to enter into advance pricing arrangement and fix the tax rate. Miners don't agree to this as they fear that tax outgo may hurt them in those years when business is not good.