The Goods & Services Tax (GST) Council on Friday could not adopt the minutes of its first meeting held earlier this month after a couple of States said that one of the items did not match their understanding of the decision that had been taken.
The item, regarding the treatment of services, was discussed again in the second meeting but with no consensus being reached it was decided to take it up again in the next round of deliberations scheduled for October 18-20, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia told reporters.
In this round, “ the Council will discuss the two big items of the GST rates and the draft state and central GST bills,” Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told a media conference. Mr. Jaitley said that the Council in its second meeting on Friday approved two agenda items. First, five sets of draft rules governing payments, refunds, returns, invoices, debt and credit notes. “These were finalised in anticipation of the GST legislations under which the final rules will be notified,” he said.
The second decision was with regard to the exemptions from various tax laws and taxes in place currently with which the Centre and States incentivise a variety of industries to invest.
Mr. Jaitley said that while the decisions on which all of these will be retained in the GST system and which phased out will be taken at a later stage, it was decided by the Council that for those exemptions that will survive the Centre and States will levy the new indirect tax and also collect it from businesses.
