53rd GST Council meeting: key decisions

Chaired by Nirmala Sitharaman, Union Finance Minister.

Law and procedure

• Recommended waiving interest and penalty on demand notices under section 73 for 2017-18 to 2019-20, where the full tax is paid by 31 March 2025, through a new section 128A.
• Recommended monetary limits for appeals by the department: Rs. 20 lakh before the GST Appellate Tribunal, Rs. 1 crore before High Courts and Rs. 2 crore before the Supreme Court.
• Recommended lowering the maximum pre-deposit for appeals before the appellate authority and the tribunal.
• Recommended a common time limit for issuing demand notices and orders, for both fraud and non-fraud cases, from 2024-25 through a new section 74A.

Compliance and returns

• Recommended treating input tax credit for 2017-18 to 2020-21 claimed in returns filed up to 30 November 2021 as within time under section 16(4).
• Recommended reducing the TCS rate collected by e-commerce operators from 1 per cent to 0.5 per cent.
• Exempted taxpayers with turnover up to Rs. 2 crore from filing the 2023-24 annual return, and introduced Form GSTR-1A to amend outward supply details.

Rates

• Set a uniform 12 per cent rate on milk cans, cartons and boxes of paper, solar cookers and all kinds of sprinklers, and 5 per cent IGST on imports of aircraft parts for MRO, subject to conditions.
• Exempted Indian Railways services to the public such as platform tickets and retiring rooms, intra-railway supplies, and hostel accommodation outside institutions up to Rs. 20,000 per person per month.

Registration

• Approved a phased pan-India rollout of biometric Aadhaar authentication for registration applicants.

Official documents

• Minutes
• Agenda

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