Some Hits, Some Misses

The GST Council meeting took care of procedural matters, but some big decisions are awaited

- SURABHI

AFTER A GAP of over eight months, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council met on June 22. Coming as it did after a brief hiatus brought about by the General Elections, the meeting was keenly awaited by trade and industry, which was hoping for clarity on many issues.

The Council, chaired by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman with representatives from all states including as many as 11 new members-clearly had a busy agenda and announced as many as 52 decisions. Almost all of them were procedural and compliance related and gave respite to industry and taxpayers by improving the ease of doing business and providing certainty on tax rates.

Some of these decisions include extending the due date for input tax credit, setting monetary limits to file appeals under the GST Appellate Tribunal, reducing the quantum of pre-deposit for filing appeals, and rolling out the biometric-based Aadhaar authentication of registration applicants on a pan-India basis in a phased manner. It also approved a sunset date of April 1, 2025, for antiprofiteering matters-cases can only be filed under this provision up to that date. The Council also decided to provide a new optional facility for form GSTR-1A to help amend details in form GSTR-1 that deals with monthly or quarterly returns.