The GST council has been callings numerous meeting sessions from August starting from the day when parliament and both the house of states cleared the GST bill with the consent. In this same line-up, the GST council held a three-day session in Delhi for finalizing the GST rate.
The session ended abruptly ahead of the scheduled date without coming to a consensus, and a member of the discussion acknowledged that now the crucial GST rate will be decided on upcoming meetings which are set to on November 3 and 4 while the second meeting on November 9.
Mr. Adhia said that “the main issue which blocked the progress of meeting was the issue of Cess implication which was proposed by the center on ultra luxury products like high-end cars, and demerit goods.”
The Finance Minister Arun Jaitley cleared that next meet will be on November 3-4 to decide on the GST rates structure. The cess collection has also the meaning of compensating the states for the loss of revenue.
The finance minister also mentioned that “We will finalize the tax structure at the next meeting… it can be frozen only after deciding whether compensation to States is to be funded out of the rate structure itself or from some special cess or some third source.”
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Mr. Adhia revealed that “If instead of the proposed cess on GST, simply the rate of the GST on demerit goods is raised, as suggested by some States, then, the GST rate structure would end up with a multitude of tax slabs,”
