GST Council approves draft Compensation Bill; to next meet in March

FM Arun Jaitleychairs the 10th GST Council meeting in Udaipur

New Delhi: The GST Council, in a meeting on Saturday, cleared the law for compensating states for loss of revenue that they may incur during implementation of of Goods and Service Tax.

The states and the Centre met in Udaipur to vet the draft supporting legislations crucial for the implementation of the GST.

The council’s nod has paved the way for the law to be tabled in Parliament in the second half of the budget session beginning 9 March, as well as for the states to pass the bill in the respective state assembly. ”It's essential that enabling laws for GST are passed in 2nd half of Budget Session to ensure rollout from July 1”, said the FM.

The 10th meeting of the GST council, however, did not discuss the anti-profiteering clause, Jaitley added.

However, the other three supporting legislations crucial for the implementation of the new indirect tax regime—the central GST (C-GST), the state GST (S-GST) and the integrated GST (I-GST) bills did not receive the nod from the GST Council. These bills will now be taken up in the next meeting of the GST council on 4-5 March in New Delhi.

“One major meeting of GST Council is required to give approval to putting goods and services in different tax slabs”, added Jaitley.