14th GST Council Meet Live Updates: Council Clears Rules and Exempts Raw Food items from GST

The goods and service tax council has finally approved the final set of rules which will be implemented in the new upcoming tax structure. As from the sources, it has been known that GST council has finalized tax rates of over 80 to 90 percent goods and services coming into the four slab tax rates. It also ensured that the daily usable items will be fitted into lowest slab rate of 5 percent which will not impact on the inflation.

Also, it is known that tariffs for over 1150 items have been decided in the meeting. The nine rules which were cleared in the meeting are from the registration, return, refund, composition, transition, invoice, payment, input tax credit, valuation. It came from the top sources that the GST council started its discussion from the items which are to be attracting 0 percent GST and almost all the states have been demanding to keep some similar tax rating items sensitive to their particular states out of the list. For example, Uttar Pradesh wants Pooja material out of tax net. Some other states want cotton yarn and silk yarn out.

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The base exemption has also into the consideration as the center government wants the exemption list to be small while the exemption of the services will be discussed soon. Also, it is noted that the government wants the common man to be secured from the inflation and therefore took the decision to put the items like food grains and raw food into the exemption list. A government official mentioned that “There is broad consensus in the council on keeping food grains and raw food items at 0.” The finalization of the zero category slab has been done close to 98 percent as cleared by an official. While the processed food including edible oil, ghee can find its place in the 5 percent tax rate slab.