The Goods and Services Tax Council on Thursday approved changing the tax rates of 29 goods and 53 categories of services, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said. The revised rates will be applicable from January 25.
The proposal to bring petroleum and diesel products under the ambit of the GST is likely to be taken up at the next meeting, he told reporters.
The council discussed ways to simplify the process of filing GST returns, and Nandan Nilekani, the non-executive chairperson of Infosys, gave a detailed presentation on how to go about it.
The panel also decided to divide between the Centre and state collections worth Rs 35,000 crore from Integrated Goods and Services Tax. The IGST is levied on inter-state supplies of goods and services.
This was the 25th meeting of the council, which has met every month since the new tax regime came into effect on July 1, 2017. The finance minister heads the council.
This is the second biggest tax rejig since the new regime came into effect. In November 2017, the council had reduced the rates for more than 200 items. It had lowered the tax rates on 178 items from 28% to 18%, moved 13 items from the 18% tax slab to 12%, and another six from the 18% to 5% category. Tax on eight items was lowered from 12% to 5%, and six other items were moved from the 5% slab to nil.
Eating out also became less expensive as the GST in all restaurants – whether air-conditioned or not – was lowered to 5%.
In December 2017, Jaitley had told the Rajya Sabha that the Centre wants to bring petroleum products under the ambit of the GST, but it will wait till states reach a consensus on the matter.
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