The 48th GST Council meeting is scheduled to take place on December 17 (Saturday), which may be its last meeting before the Union Budget 2023. Among the issues that are likely to be discussed are the decriminalisation of offences, the setting up of an Appellate Tribunal and the fitment committee’s pending recommendations. Apart from this, the Council may also discuss certain tax rate changes.
In the previous 47th meeting in June 2022, the GST Council had decided to accept the group of ministers’ interim reports on the correction of duty inversion and exemption. Pre-packaged and pre-labelled retail packs, including curd, lassi and butter milk, were also brought under GST.
On the upcoming meet, experts said that as this meeting may be the last meeting prior to Union Budget 2023, the Council may also discuss certain tax rate changes and system reforms for ease of compliance. The topic of GST rate rationalisation is also likely to be picked up in the discussions.
The Council, which is headed by the Union finance minister and comprises representatives of all states and UTs, is going to conduct its 48th meeting this week (December 17) via videoconferencing.
Ankur Gupta, practice leader (indirect tax) at SW India, said, “On the rate front, we might not see much due to inflationary pressure except for health services where rates could go down from 18 per cent to 12 per cent."
Gupta added that this would be the last Council meeting for the year and few important outcomes are expected out of this meeting. He added that there should be some update based on reports of GoMs rate and valuation on casino and online games along with capacity-based levy on certain tobacco products.
“Secondly, on the administrative front, we might see a concrete plan on setting up the GST Tribunal and the decriminalisation of offences under GST. We might also see some discussion on guidelines or the role of CCI as it is now the anti-profiteering authority under GST and considering there are no industry-specific guidelines for calculating the price reduction extent warranted by the tax rate cuts, it would be difficult for CCI to conclude the cases," he said.
According to an ET report, the government is likely to revisit the issue of increase in GST on scientific equipment from 5 per cent to 18 per cent, which had been criticised by the scientific community over its potential impact on India’s research capabilities.
In the previous meeting, though the Council recommended to revise the scope of exemption to exclude from it pre-packaged and pre-labelled retail packs, including curd, lassi and butter milk; GST was exempted on specified food items and grains, etc, when not branded, or right on the brand has been foregone. Rates on some goods and services were also changed.
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