The GST Council has recommended a uniform rate of 12 percent GST on all steel, iron, and aluminium milk cans. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, speaking to the media after the 53rd GST Council meeting held today in New Delhi, also announced that services provided by the Indian Railways to the common man, including the sale of platform tickets, facility of retiring rooms and waiting rooms, and battery-operated car services, will not attract any GST. She said, in a move that will benefit the apple growers of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, the council has recommended a uniform GST rate of 12 percent on all carton boxes and cases of both corrugated and non-corrugated paper or paperboard.
Ms. Sitharaman also said that there is going to be a rollout of biometric-based Aadhaar authentication on an all-India basis. This will help the government combat fraudulent input tax credit claims made through fake invoices. The Minister said that to help small taxpayers, the Council has recommended extending the time limit to furnish details and returns in the form GSTR-4 from 30th April to 30th June.
Ms. Sitharaman also informed that the GST Council has recommended waiving interest and penalties for demand notices that have been issued under Section 73 of the GST Act, including cases not involving fraud, suppression, or misstatements. She said that for all those notices issued under Section 73 for the fiscal years 2017-18, 2018-19, and 2019-20, the Council has recommended waiving interest and penalties on the demand notices that have been served.
The minister informed that in order to reduce government litigation, the council has recommended a monetary limit of 20 lakh rupees for the GST appellate tribunal, one crore rupees for the High Court, and two crore rupees for the Supreme Court for filing appeals by the department. She added that the Council has also recommended that the maximum amount for pre-deposit for filing an appeal before the appellate authority shall be reduced from 25 crore rupees CGST and 25 crore rupees SGST to 20 crore rupees CGST and 20 crore rupees SGST.
