Jaitley to chair 15th GST Council meet to finalise rates on gold, biscuits

The Dollar Business Bureau 

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will head the 15th meeting of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council in New Delhi on Saturday, in which the tax rates and cess on biscuits, gold and some other items are likely to be decided.

It is also expected that the GST Council may review the rates of tax for some commodities in view of responses received from the industry.

The agenda of the Council meeting is also to approve the amendments in the draft GST Rules and other related forms.

“This meeting is important because it is likely to finalise the rates of tax and cess to be levied on the commodities remaining... Approval of amendments to the draft GST rules and related forms are also on the agenda among others,” said a Finance Ministry statement.

It is supposed to be the last meeting of the GST Council before the rolling out of the new GST regime from July 1, it added.

Finance Ministers of various states and union territories (UTs), along with senior officials, would attend the meeting. 

In May, the GST Council had finalised the tax rates for 1,200 goods and 500 services under the four slabs of taxes of 5%, 12%, 18% and 28%. There is also a cess to be imposed over and above the highest tax rate of 28% on luxury and demerit goods.

However, in the last meeting, the GST Council had postponed the decision on finalising the tax rates on 6 commodities including biscuits, footwear, textiles, bidis, bidi wrapper leaves (tendu patta), and also precious metals, precious/semi-precious stones, pearls, coins and artificial jewellery.