The 26th GST Council meeting was held in New Delhi today and contrary to the expectations of key decisions being announced on simplification of returns and e-Way Bills, only a few procedural decisions and deferments were announced. Key decisions taken in the meeting are:

  • GST returns simplification
    • The Finance Minister Arun Jaitley informed that two different return filing models are being considered by the GST Council – one presented by Nandan Nilekani (with focus on simple and taxpayer-friendly) and the other by the tax administration officials (with focus on plugging tax leakages).
    • A final decision will be taken in due course considering the twin goals of preventing evasion and process simplification.
    • Meanwhile, the ongoing return filing process of filing GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B has been extended until June 2018.
  • Postponement of certain provisions
    • The reverse charge mechanism on supply from unregistered dealers (which was earlier suspended until 31 March 2018) has been further deferred until 30 June 2018.
    • The implementation of provisions in respect of 'tax deduction at source' and 'tax collection at source' has also been postponed until June 2018.
  • Implementation of e-Way Bill mechanism
    • The nationwide e-Way Bill for inter-state movement of goods will be implemented from 1 April 2018.
    • e-Way Bill for intra-state movement of goods will be implemented in a staggered manner from 15 April 2018. The states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala are likely to implement intra-state e-Way Bill in the first phase.
  • Extension of exemption to exporters
    • A special drive is proposed to clear refunds to exporters in an accelerated manner. Manual refund claims would be resorted to for accepting claims in the light of technical glitches in online filing of refunds.

SKP's Comments

  • Contrary to industry expectations, no substantial decisions were taken in the meeting. The decisions in respect of simplifying compliance procedures and bringing aviation turbine fuel and extra neutral alcohol within the ambit of GST have been deferred.
  • The Council's decision of implementing a nationwide e-Way Bill from 1 April 2018 means the backend IT infrastructure of the GST portal will be put to test once again. Businesses hope that there is no major disruption in business operations due to problems with the e-Way Bill portal they had faced previously.

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