GST Council to meet on September 17; what's on the agenda?

The Goods and Service Tax (GST) Council is all set to meet on September 17, in what will be the first physical meet since the outbreak of the pandemic. CNBC-TV18’s Timsy Jaipuria explains what is likely to be discussed in the meeting.

A lot of compliance issues are on the agenda. A lot of industry queries are there, how to treat intermediaries, how will the interest be levied on the wrongful or ineligible claims of ITC, which have been troubling the industry for quite some time, those clarities are likely to pan out in the upcoming GST Council meeting.

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Also, the Council meeting will introduce a new portal, that is gst.gov.in that will be one comprehensive portal where one can register, file returns, claim ITC etc., it will be a one-stop shop for all your GST queries.

Right now, one has to log into GSTN, then go to separate windows. There was a provision to provide one common platform since the inception of GST and now, it finally looks like it’s coming into reality after almost five years.

Also, there will be a performance review of the National Anti-profiteering Authority (NAA), the Authority will give a snapshot of how many cases are pending etc.

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Overall, there will be two Group of Ministers’ (GoM) reports that will be submitted – firstly on Sikkim. Sikkim had wanted to levy a cess similar to Kerala. The way Kerala had levied the flood cess, Sikkim wants to levy a special COVID cess – 1 percent of cess on pharmaceutical supply. So that is where GoM says one percent interest rate movement of pharmaceutical goods can be taxed as special COVID cess and second demand was to levy 0.1 rupee per unit consumption of electricity. That is a state subject, not under the purview of GST, so that has been ruled out.

Another request is to have Rs 300 crore special assistance for the next three years, that is something that the Council cannot give but only the Union government can sanction that.

Apart from it, on tobacco and chewing tobacco, pan masala, gutka, there was a special demand to treat them on capacity-based GST that has been ruled out by the GoM.