Enhancing oversight: On the GST Council meet and issues
The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council, entrusted with overseeing the seven-year-old indirect tax regime, is slated to meet on September 9. This would be its second sitting in under three months, after a nine-month pause. The Council, whose parleys steered by the Union Finance Minister with States’ representatives are critical for resolving taxpayer challenges and setting broader policy direction, ought to meet regularly at such frequency.
A key expectation from the upcoming meet revolves around the much-awaited review of GST’s complex, multiple-rate structure. In June, the Council resolved to take stock of the progress made on this front by a ministerial group (GoM) appointed in 2021, and deliberate on the path forward. However, going by State Ministers’ recent submissions to the GoM, progress is likely to be slow and arduous, with most members signalling an aversion to shake things up when revenues are healthy.
Ideally, the Council should at least set a time line for concluding the group’s deliberations and nudge it to come up with a couple of alternatives for the revamped rate structure if consensus is difficult to attain. These could then be deliberated over by the Council, possibly with some public feedback incorporated.
Beyond the broader revamp, the Council could also be briefed this time on the feasibility of reviewing the 18% GST levy on individual goods and services such as health insurance and life cover, that have attracted attention recently within and outside Parliament. These have been assessed by officials in the past too, without resulting in any change in stance.
