Major Announcements made in 28th GST Council Meeting

Raksha Tiwari

01 Apr, 2021

28th GST council meeting was held in New Delhi on Saturday, 21st of July 2018. This meeting was chaired by ShriPiyushGoyal and later he addresses the media and informed an about the discussions and key decisions taken in the meeting. Following matters were discussed in the meeting:

• Changes in GST rates of various items
• Simplification of GST return filing Structure
• Simplification of taxation of services in India
• Re-opening of migration window
• Other miscellaneous GST related matters like registration and composition.

1. Substantial changes in GST Rates

There were some major GST rate changes were introduced. While various items from 28% tax slab were moved to 18 or 12 percent slabs. These items include paints and varnishes, Refrigerators, freezers and other refrigerating or freezing equipment, Domestic electrical appliances, Special purpose motor vehicles. Etc.

Along with these changes, there are recommendations made for reduction of various other goods like rakhi, Sanitary Napkins, Stone/Marble/Wood Deities, etc. from 18%, 12% or 5% to 0%.

Along with the above-mentioned changes in tax rates, there was relief granted to fabric sector. Under GST fabrics are taxable fewer than 5% tax slab under the condition that in case of inversion accumulated ITC won’t be refunded. The council has decided to allow the refund such accumulated ITC on account of inverted duty structure.

2. Simplification of GST Filing System

In the previous meeting, 28th GST Council Meeting had made a recommendation for simplification of the GST return filing structure. These recommendations were accepted by the council in the 28th meeting. Following changes were approved;

• The option to file quarterly returns along with monthly tax payment through a simplified return will now be available to a wide range of taxpayers. As the threshold limit is extended from 1.5 Crore to 5 Crore.
• Taxpayers will have an option to amend invoice and other details in the return
• Many taxpayers^[1] who didn’t undertake any business were bothered by the requirement of filing a Nil There are recommendations to facilitate the filing of nil returns through SMS.

3. Simplification of taxation of services in India

Many rate changes, relaxations, clarifications etc were issued by the council in relation to GST provisions of services. These changes included the following:

• Major relief was granted to the Hotel Industry, where the tax rates will be applied on transaction value instead of the declared tariffs, as was done earlier.
• The exemption is granted to services like banking and information and technology in relation to related party transactions.
• GST rate on the supply of E-books is reduced from 18% to 5%.
• Other than the above-mentioned decisions many other reliefs were granted to sectors like agriculture, education, skill development, pension, social security etc.

4. Re-opening of migration window

The council had approved the proposal of reopening of migration window for taxpayers who were registered under a previous indirect tax regime. The only pre-requisite is that the taxpayer must have received the provisional ID and have filled out the Part of FORM GST REG-26 and failed to upload the Part B of the same.

This migration window is reopened and will remain open until 31^st August 2018. For completing the migration process the taxpayer is required to approach the Central Tax/State Tax nodal officers of their jurisdiction with the required documents.

5. Other miscellaneous Matters

Along with all the above-mentioned changes many recommendations were made by the 28th GST Council Meeting which will be placed before the Parliament and legislature of the states for amendments in respective state laws. Some of these recommendations are mentioned here;

• To allow the composition dealers to supply services other than restaurant services (which is already covered under composition scheme). However, the value of such supplied services must not exceed the higher of the following: 10% of the preceding financial year’s turnover of 5, 00,000.
• RCM on supply by unregistered suppliers will be applicable f specified cases and on the recommendation of the council.
• In states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Sikkim and Uttarakhand increase the GST exemption threshold limit from 10 lakh to 20 lakh.
• Only e-commerce operators required to collect tax at sources will be mandatorily required to register under GST.
• To increase the threshold limit of turnover for Composition scheme from 1 Crore to 1.5 Crore.
• To allow a taxpayer to get multiple online GST registration within a state for a different place of business located within that state.

Also, Read

• 25th GST Council Meeting – Highlight of the Key Decisions