- June 26, 2024
- Posted by: SHM & Associates, Chartered Accountants
- Categories:
Background
Following an eight-month hiatus, the newly re-appointed Union Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman announced several significant measures during the 53rd GST Council meeting convened on Saturday, June 22, 20241. The session, chaired by Sitharaman along with the newly appointed committee members and attended by state finance ministers, focused on plethora of areas including tax amendments, Aadhaar biometric integration, and exemptions in railway services. Albeit high expectations from the various industries, the council issued several recommendations pertinent to the changes in GST tax rates for goods and services, measures for facilitation of trade along with appropriate clarifications and other measures pertaining to law and procedures, with more to follow in the upcoming meeting to be held in August 2024. A glimpse of the trailing insights is as follows:
| S.No. | Particulars | Details |
| 1. | Insertion of Section 128A in CGST Act, to provide for conditional waiver of interest or penalty or both, relating to demands raised under Section 73, for FY 2017-18 to FY 2019-20 | GST Council recommends waiving interest and penalties for demand notices issued under Section 73 of the CGST Act (i.e. the cases not involving fraud, suppression or willful misstatement, etc.) for the fiscal years 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20, if the full tax demanded is paid upto March 31,2025 |
| 2. | New Optional facility in Form GSTR-1A | The Council recommended providing a new optional facility by way of FORM GSTR-1A to facilitate the taxpayers to amend the details in FORM GSTR-1 for a tax period and/ or to declare additional details, if any, before filing of return in FORM GSTR-3B for the said tax period |
| 3. | No Levy of interest for specific case | GST Council recommends to not levy interest u/s 50 of CGST Act in case of delayed filing of return, on the amount which is available in Electronic Cash Ledger (ECL) on the due date of filing of the said return. |
| 4. | Rolling out of bio-metric based Aadhaar authentication on All-India basis | The GST Council recommended to roll-out the biometric-based Aadhaar authentication of registration applicants on pan-India basis in a phased manner. This will strengthen the registration process in GST and will help in combating fraudulent input tax credit (ITC) claims made through fake invoices. |
| 5. | Change in the threshold limit for reporting of B2C supplies | The threshold for reporting of B2C inter-State supplies invoice-wise in Table 5 of FORM GSTR-1 was recommended to be reduced from Rs 2.5 Lakh to Rs 1 Lakh. |
Additionally, the Council anticipates the release of circulars that will provide elucidations concerning the taxability of reimbursement of securities/ shares as ESOP/ESPP/RSU provided by a company to its employees, taxability of wreck and salvage values in motor insurance claims, determination of place of supply of goods supplied to unregistered persons, where delivery address is different from the billing address.
In this Tax alert, we have summarized the key recommendations and clarifications in GST law and GST rates related changes.
To read the complete alert : Click here
Please note that the above narration is only a summary based on our understanding of the ruling. This summary should not be construed as advice, including any advice that may only be provided by a qualified legal professional. It serves as a technical summary to keep you informed about the latest tax issues. Please reach out to your SHM SPOC for specific queries and applicability.
We hope you find this update useful.
