The final decision regarding GST is taken by the GST Council. But the council has not met for a long time. The last meeting of the GST Council was held in Lucknow in September last year. Sources believe that it is not possible to postpone the council meeting now.
Not only the common people are being affected by the hit of record-high inflation in India. Now the effect of inflation is starting to affect the decisions of the government and due to this the scheme of GST slab rejig and change in rates (GST rate rationalization) has been postponed. At a time when the prices of things are already skyrocketing, the central and state governments do not want to take any new risks by making any changes in the tax rates.
External factors affecting prices
Actually, this pandemic (Covid-19) first affected the world. After that, the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine (Russo-Ukraine War) made the situation worse. Due to this, there is a shortage of food grains and their prices are increasing. These external factors are affecting the scarcity and inflation of commodities. In view of these circumstances, the government has decided to postpone the proposed change in GST rates for the time being to increase tax collection.
Council meeting not held after September
The final decision regarding GST is taken by the GST Council. But the council has not met for a long time. The last meeting of the GST Council was held in Lucknow in September last year. Sources believe that it is not possible to postpone the council meeting now. He said that the monsoon session of Parliament is going to start from the third week of July and the meeting cannot be adjourned till later. A source said that the possibility of a meeting of the GST Council in the third or fourth week of July cannot be ruled out.
A council meeting may be held next month
Another official said that the meeting of the GST Council can be held even before the Parliament session. However, chances are slim that a large number of items will be installed due to assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh later this year.
These tasks were given to the Group of Ministers
In the last meeting held in September, the council had tasked a group of state finance ministers to look into the possibility of rationalizing GST rates. The main task given to the group was to review the reduction in GST rates on several goods and services in its meeting held in Guwahati in November 2017. In that meeting, chaired by the then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, only 50 items were placed. The highest slab of 28 percent. In that meeting, the council reduced the tax rate on 178 items from 28 percent to 18 percent. Apart from these, it was also decided to reduce the rate of tax on many goods from 5 percent to zero.
Record GST collection in April
Let us tell you that there was a decline in the GST collection at the time of the lockdown imposed for the prevention of the corona epidemic, but now it has improved. The total GST collection in April 2022 was Rs 1,67,540 crore. In April 2022, the government received Rs 33,159 crore from Central GST (CGST). In addition, the government received Rs 41,973 crore from State GST (SGST) and Rs 81,939 crore from Integrated GST (IGST). Integrated GST also includes a collection of Rs 36,705 crore received from the import of goods. The government got Rs 10,649 crore from cess, of which Rs 857 crore came from the import of goods. In this way, a record of GST collection of about Rs 1.68 lakh crore was made in April 2022.
