GST council approves draft rules in 13th meeting

The prospects of rollout of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) from July 1, 2017 has been brightened further, when the all-powerful GST Council chaired by the Hon’ble Finance Minister, Mr. Arun Jaitley met for the thirteenth time in a row to clear all gathered clouds over the GST and brightening its prospects of implementation soon.

With the conclusion of the 13th GST Council meet on March 31, 2017, the gist of the key takeaways from the meeting of the GST Council are as under:

Five set of Draft Rules originally approved to be altered in consonance with the GST legislations:

Earlier, the GST Council finalized five sets of Draft Rules relating to Registration, Refunds, Returns, Payment and Invoice, Debit Note & Credit Note.

In this regard, the Hon’ble Finance Minister, Mr. Arun Jaitley said that “the five set of draft rules that were originally approved have to be partly amended and altered to bring them in conformity with the provision of the Act”.

​​​​​​​Nod to another four sets of Draft Rules:

Now, it also gave its tentative nod to four more sets of Draft Rules dealing with GST Input Tax Credit, Valuation, Transitional Provisions and the Composition scheme.

The Hon’ble Finance Minister said that the four new Draft Rules have been tentatively approved and will be put up in public domain for suggestions. These will be finalised in the GST Council’s next meeting.

Final approval to these 4 Draft Rules and rate structure to be taken up in next meeting:

The Hon’ble Finance Minister said that “The next meeting will be held on 18-19 May in Srinagar where besides these rules which will be given final approval, the rate structure in relation to individual commodities will be taken up for consideration. In the meanwhile, the officers’ committee will start working on the fitment of those rates”.

Thus, the final nod to the new 4 sets of Draft Rules as well as fixation of GST rates for goods and services will be done in the next meeting of the GST Council scheduled on 18-19 May, 2017. From the recent series of steps that out of 9 Draft Rules, 5 Draft Rules were already finalized subject to certain alteration and tentative nod to remaining 4 sets of Draft Rules that will be put on public domain to be taken up for final approval, it seems that the Government is very keen to implement the tax reform from July 1, 2017.

Source: Economic Times, Livemint etc., and video capturing the press conference of Mr. Arun Jaitley after 13th GST Council Meet ends - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj6QVSb3eOk