“Most art investors could not claim the work to be their personal effect. Even if someone had a genuine personal effect, it was very unlikely that the I-T Department would accept it, especially if the amount it fetched was huge,” says Neville Tuli, of Osian’s Art Gallery.

He is happy that art sale is now under the purview of capital gains and the confusion has been done away with. “The new transparency will help build a systematic industry for cultural artifacts,” Tuli said.

Crayon Capital’s Vadhera says this would also mean reduction in speculative selling, which has been rampant in the industry. “Since capital gains encourages long-term holding, speculative and short-term trading would be discouraged, and the market will become more stable.”