Minutes of the 13th GST Council Meeting

The 13^th GST Council meeting headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was held on 31^st March,2017 and the following issues were addressed :

The GST Council met in New Delhi to approve rules for the new indirect tax regime. The council meeting has approved all nine sets of rules required for implementing GST.
In the meeting the GST council had discussed on the four sets of rules -- input tax credit rules, valuation rules, transitional provisions and composition rules.
The tentatively approved rules will be put up for public comments and industry can send their suggestions. The rules will be taken up for final approval in the next meeting.
The council has already approved rules on registration, return, payment, refund, invoice, debit and credit but they have to be altered to bring them in conformity with those provided in the GST Bills, explained Jaitley.
The Lok Sabha on Wednesday had passed four bills to pave the way for Goods and Services Tax (GST) implementation.
The bills are the Central Goods and Services Tax Bill (CGST), the Integrated Goods and Services Tax Bill (IGST) the Goods and Services Tax (Compensation to States) Bill and the Union Territory Goods and Services Tax Bill (UTGST).
Once the bills are passed in by both houses of Parliament, the government will issue a notification after the President’s consent. The states will then pass a separate law — the State GST (SGST) bill — to roll out the reform.

The next meeting of the GST council is scheduled on 18^th-19^th May, 2017 in Srinagar the following issues will be taken up:

The main agenda of the next GST Council meeting to be held will be to finalise the rules.
The rates of individual commodities will be taken up for consideration. The rates in the four-slab structure of the GST will be 5%, 12%, 18% and 28%. A cess on certain goods will also be levied to create a fund for compensating states for any revenue loss in the first five years of the new tax regime.