After a gap of over seven months, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council is scheduled to hold an in-person meeting on February 18, where it is likely to pave the way for the setting up appellate tribunals for the comprehensive indirect tax.
According to sources close to the development, the GST Council, chaired by the Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, is expected to consider two key reports, including one on the setting up GST Appellate Tribunals and another report on plugging revenue leakages in evasion prone sectors like pan masala in the coming meet.
Additionally, the agenda is expected to include a few duty revisions including on millets as well as on stationery items like sharpeners. These proposals are based on a review by the fitment committee of the GST Council.With the UN declaring 2023 as the International Year of Millets, the GST Council is expected to reduce the GST rate from 18% to nil for millet-based products sold in loose form and to 5% for those in pre-packaged and labelled form. Millet should make for at least 70% of the ingredient in these products. Proposals to review the GST rate of 28% on cement as well as to levy a compensation cess on multi utility vehicles as is done for SUVs is unlikely to be taken up at the upcoming meeting.
Meanwhile, with a large backlog of pending cases, which has also been highlighted by industry, the GST Council is expected to take forward the report on setting up GST Appellate tribunals. A number of states had in fact called for postponing the GST Council meeting to March due to their ongoing Budget sessions but sources said the Centre is keen to move ahead with this agenda.The report of the GOM, headed by Haryana deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala, is understood to have suggested setting up a principal bench at New Delhi. Regional benches will also be set up in states.
Once the proposal is passed by the GST Council, the Centre may take up amendments to the Central GST Act in the second half of the Budget Session of Parliament. The CGST Act will be amended to provide for all benches of the same kind with a principal bench in New Delhi where the tribunal’s president will sit.The GST Council in its last meeting on December 17 could also not take up this issue due to a paucity of time and request by some states to wind up the meeting early. Prior to that, the Council had held a physical meeting in June 2022.