GST Council Meetings – Timeline and their announcements

Date

Decisions taken/Announcements

30-June-2017

Next GST Council Meeting to be held

• Official launch of GST on midnight 30 June and 1 July in Delhi.
• Relaxation in return filing for first 2 months.
• Summary returns in Form GSTR-3B on self-declaration basis to be filed for the month of July and August by the 20^th of the next month respectively, after paying appropriate taxes.
• GSTR-1 with invoice level details needs to be filed for the month of July by 5th September, and for the month of August by 20th September. GSTR-2 and GSTR-3 for these 2 months will be filed thereafter.
• Relaxation to traders on the filing of returns.
• Further consultations on e-way bills, till then alternative rule to prevail.
• Clearing of 6 rules, including anti-profiteering.
• Anti-profiteering body to be set up for 2 years.
• 28% limit in hotels will start from Rs 7,500; between Rs. 2,500- Rs. 7,500 the rate will be 18%.
• GST on restaurants in these hotels will be at par with other air-conditioned restaurants (18%).
• State-run lotteries will be taxed at 12% of the face value and state-authorized lotteries at 28%.

• Revised the 66 item rates out of 133 representations received from industry.
• Finalization of the accounting rules of GST.

• Clear the pending rules, including transition provisions and returns.
• Agreeing with all the states to a July 1 rollout of the new tax regime.

• Approves GST rates for goods and GST Compensation Cess.
• Approved the GST rates for goods at nil rate, 5%, 12%, 18% and 28% on around 1200 goods & 500 services.
• Approved the rates of GST Compensation Cess to be levied on certain goods.

• Approved the Rules relating to Input Tax Credit, Valuation, Composition and Transition.
• Gave final approval for changes in rules for filing tax returns in the new regime, registration of entities, payment of GST, invoicing and refunds to make them compatible with GST laws.

• Cleared the remaining two supplementary legislations UTGST (Union Territory GST Law) and the SGST (State GST Law) needed for implementation of the goods and service tax (GST) regime.
• Approved the bound rate of 15 percent as peak rate for the proposed cess to be levied on certain demerit goods.

• Council cleared the two key draft laws of Central GST (CGST) and Integrated GST (IGST).
• Hotels with an annual turnover of less than Rs. 50 lakh will pay the lowest tax rate of 5 percent under the GST regime.

• Formally approved Compensation law.
• Some of the issues in three crucial draft CGST/SGT/ IGST laws discussed.

• A broad consensus reached for GST to be rolled out from 1st July 2017 instead of 1st April 2017.
• The issue of dual control was broadly resolved. States will have powers to assess and administer 90 percent of the taxpayers under Rs. 1.5 crores annual turnover while the Centre would control the remaining 10 per cent.
• Taxpayers with turnover more than Rs 1.5 crores will be controlled and administered in 50:50 ratio both by the states and by Centre.
• States can levy GST within 12 nautical miles of its coastline in the high seas.
• The Centre will resolve any IGST disputes among states.

• Issue of dual control remained unresolved.
• States raised a new issue of a split in tax revenue in the ratio of 60:40 between states and Centre instead of equally dividing GST between Centre and states.
• States demanded taxation rights for sales made in the high seas within 12 nautical miles of its coastline.
• States requested to increase the number of items on which this new Cess is to be levied.

• Draft CGST and SGST Law cleared along with compensation law.
• No consensus reached on the issue of dual control.

• The Council discussed on the Model CGST and SGST legislation (Model GST Law) which was released in the public domain on November 26, 2016.
• Could not reach consensus on the issue of dual control of assesses.

• Consensus not reached on the issue of sharing of administrative powers between the Centre and the states.

• Decided a four­tier GST rate structure of 5, 12, 18 and 28 per cent.
• Essential items including food to be taxed at zero rates.
• The lowest rate of 5 per cent would be for common use items.
• 12 percent and 18 percent would be the standard rates.
• The highest rate would apply to luxury and de­merit goods, which will also attract an additional cess.
• The collection from this cess as well as clean energy cess will be used for compensating states for any loss of revenue during the first five years of implementation of GST.

• Proposed a four­tier rate structure comprising a lower rate of 6 per cent, two standard rates of 12 percent and 18 percent and a higher rate of 26 percent with an additional cess for luxury and demerit goods.
• Use of cess proposed, for payment of compensation to the States. However, consensus not reached.

• The GST Council finalized five subordinate legislations relating to payment, returns, refunds, invoice, and registration.
• Consensus on “area based” exemption in accordance with those granted under the current excise regime.
• Taxes will have to be collected and it can be reimbursed from the annual budgets to the exempted categories.
• To compensate States for 5 years for loss of revenue due to the implementation of GST), the base year for the revenue of the State would be 2015­16 and a fixed growth rate of 14 percent will be applied to it.

• Threshold exemption limit decided at Rs. 10 Lakhs for the North-eastern States and Rs. 20 Lakhs for the rest of India.
• States will have sole jurisdiction over assessees having a turnover of Rs. 1.5 crores or less.
• The existing service tax assessees will continue to be under the jurisdiction of Centre.
• The Centre will pay quarterly or bi­monthly compensation to States, in the case of any revenue loss.
• Decided 2015­16 as the base year for calculating the compensation.