FIRST GST COUNCIL MEETING OF THE YEAR 2018

25th Meeting of GST Council meeting or the Ist meeting in the year 2018 is going to start today at Delhi with many important agenda may line up for today meeting said CA Sanjay Kumar Agrawal, Senior Partner DSRV and Co LLP, Chartered Accountants:

• Further rationalization on GST rates of about 70 items, of which at least 40 are services in the agriculture, clean energy and goods and services in common and day today usage of the poor;
• Simplification of GST Returns;
• Amendment in the definition of Supply so as to rationalize the scope of coverage under GST;
• Decision on Reverse Charge Mechanism to achieve further simplicity in the procedures;
• Presentation on Real estate to discuss impact of its inclusion under GST;
• Discussion on the impact and modularity to include the left our petroleum product in GST ambit;
• Discussion on sector specific issues like restaurant services to get the option of ITC with full rate etc.

In the 24th meeting of the GST Council held on 16th December, 2017 through a video conference reviewed the progress of readiness of hardware and software required for the introduction of nationwide e-way Bill system. This issue was discussed in detail.

Till such time as National e-way Bill is ready, the States were authorized to continue their own separate e-way Bill systems. However, it was represented by the trade and transporters that this is causing undue hardship in inter-State movement of goods and therefore, bringing in an early all India system of e-way Bill has become a necessity.

After discussions with all the states, the following decisions are taken :-

i) The nationwide e-way Bill system will be ready to be rolled out on a trial basis latest by 16th January, 2018. Trade and transporters can start using this system on a voluntary basis from 16th January, 2018.

ii) The rules for implementation of nationwide e-way Bill system for inter-State movement of goods on a compulsory basis will be notified with effect from 1 st February, 2018. This will bring uniformity across the States for seamless inter-State movement of goods.

iii) While the system for both inter-State and intra-State e-way Bill generation will be ready by 16th January, 2018, the States may choose their own timings for implementation of e-way Bill for intra-State movement of goods on any date before 1 st June, 2018.

iv) There are certain States which are already having system of e-way Bill for intra-State as well as inter-State movement and some of those States can be early adopters of national e-way Bill system for intra-State movement also. But in any case uniform system of e-way Bill for inter-State as well as intra State movement will be implemented across the country by 1 st June, 2018.

To keep a watch on the development of the proceedings of the GST council meeting today which is quite important from the point of view of simplification in GST procedures, stop tax evasion, increased tax revenue and removing software hiccups.