GST Council approves remaining rules, to meet again on May 18-19 to approve rate structure

The GST Ouncil on Friday approved remaining rules of the of the Goods and Services Tax regime, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said.

New Delhi: The GST Council on Friday approved remaining rules of the of the Goods and Services Tax regime, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said.

The Council will meet again on May 18-19 to approve rate structure for individual commodities and services.

The Lok Sabha on Wednesday cleared four supplementary GST legislations -- Central GST (CGST), Integrated GST (IGST), Union Territory GST (UTGST) and the Compensation law.

The GST will subsume excise, service tax and other local levies. Existing service tax, excise and VAT assessees would have to migrate to the new tax regime by registering on the GSTN portal.

As many as 60 percent of those assessees have already migrated to the Goods and Services Tax Network.

The GST Council has recommended a four-tier tax structure -- 5, 12, 18 and 28 percent. On the highest rate, a cess will be imposed on luxury and demerit goods to compensate states for revenue loss in the first five years of GST implementation.

A 15 percent cess cap would apply on luxury cars and aerated drinks. On pan masala, the cess has been capped at 135 percent ad valorem.

Tobacco cess will be capped at a mixture of Rs 4,170 per 1,000 sticks or ad valorem of 290 percent. Cess on coal would be at Rs 400 per tonne.

However, the Central GST (CGST) law has pegged the peak rate at 20 percent and a similar rate has been prescribed in the State GST (SGST) law, which takes the peak rate to 40 percent which will come into force only in financial exigencies.

The government has already set up 10 working groups to understand issues faced by trade and industry in various sectors to ensure a smooth transition to GST regime.