GST Council Meeting was conducted on 17th September

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The 45th GST (Goods and Service Tax) Council meeting was held in Lucknow on 17th September. The meeting was chaired by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

This was the first in-person GST meet since Covid-19 pandemic. In the meeting the following aspects were discussed and decided:

  1. Tax concession on life-saving drugs till December 31st– There will be no GST on Amphotericin B & Tocilizumab. The concessional GST rates on Covid-19 related drugs to continue and there will be no additional concession on medical equipment. Further, there will be reduction of the rates from 12% to 5% on drugs such as Itolizumab, Posaconazole, Infliximab, Bamlanivimab and Etesevimab, Casirivimab and Imdevimab, 2-Deoxy-D-Glucose and Favipiravir.
  2. Petroleum will not come within the ambit of GST– After Kerala High Court had issued a directive mentioning petrol and diesel should be included in GST, the GST council decided that it is not the right time.
  3. Zomato and Swiggy to come under GST– The e-commerce operators will be liable to pay tax for providing following services a) Transport of passengers, by any type of motor vehicles through it, b) Restaurant services provided through it with some exceptions.These changes are to come into effect from January 1, 2022 to allow e-commerce operators to make software changes.
  4. No fresh compensation to states beyond June 2022– As per the GST(Compensation to States)Act, the compensation period is 5 years and the five year period ends in 2022.
  5. GST Council sets-up two groups of ministers– There will be 2 groups of ministers, one group will look into the issue of correction of inverted duty structure for major sectors; rationalise the rates and review exemptions from the point of view of revenue augmentation, from GST. Another group will discuss means of using technology to further improve compliance including monitoring through improved e-way bill systems, e-invoices, FASTag data and strengthening the institutional mechanism for sharing of intelligence and coordinated enforcement actions by the Centre and the states.
  6. Improved Inverted duty scheme-An inverted duty scheme on footwear and textiles will be corrected from January 1, 2022.

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