GST council chaired by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, it is expected that the next council meeting will held on 24th October in New Delhi and the council members will discuss the rates of remaining 60 items.
A senior official government spoke that, “Around 100 items were there in the Council meeting’s agenda on Saturday. Only 40 items could be taken up for discussion as we were running out of time. Remaining items will be considered in the next meeting on October 24. The official further added, Most of the remaining items are demands of individual states now.”
After a discussion of more than eight hours, the GST Council – body including state finance ministers and senior government officials had taken important decisions on 21st Council Meeting i.e on 9th September which had influenced taxpayers since the implementation of GST.
The deadline for filing the first set of returns under GST had been extended by the GST Council on Saturday. A great move taken by the government will benefited million of taxpayers who have been facing issues to upload invoice at GSTN portal.
The GST Council also constituted a five Group of Ministers (GoM) to address the technical issues and problems being faced by taxpayers at the time of filing returns at the GSTN portal.
GSTN portal is an IT backbone formed under GST, which look out matters relating to the new tax regime such as taxpayer registration, handle invoices, connect states for two-way data flow, filing returns and execute inter-state tax settlements.
The Council brings down the rates of 40 items, keeping in mind that these items are in need of an subtle handling and it includes such as tamarind, roasted gram, raincoats, custard powder, dhoop, agarbatti, and rubber band.
Arun Jaitley said, “These (the rates) were in some higher category. In some cases the rates have been brought down to from 28 to 18 percent, in some cases from 18 to 12 percent and in some cases from 12 to five percent.” He further added, “Reduction in rates were required”.
Another official said that the government is examining the revision of rate those placed in the highest GST slab rate of 28 percent. “A decision towards this is yet to be taken as it would require Council’s approval.”
