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The 42nd GST Council met under the Chairmanship of Union Finance & Corporate Affairs Minister Smt Nirmala Sitharaman through video conferencing on 5th October 2020. The meeting was also attended by Union Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs besides Finance Ministers of States & UTs and senior officers of the Ministry of Finance & States/ UTs. The GST Council has made the following recommendations: 1. Levy of Compensation Cess to be extended beyond the transition period of five years i.e. beyond June, 2022, for such period as may be required to meet the revenue gap. Further details to be worked out. 2. Centre is releasing compensation of ₹ 20,000 crore to States today towards loss of revenue during 2020-21 and an amount of about ₹ 25,000 crore towards IGST of 2017-18 by next week. 3. Enhancement in features of return filing:In its 39th Meeting held in March 2020, the Council had recommended an incremental approach to incorporate features of the new return sy...

‘E-Invoicing’ for certain classes of taxpayers has come into effect from 1-10-2020. Keeping in view the hardships faced by the taxpayers due to COVID-19 lockdown and as some of these taxpayers are still not ready, as a last chance, Government had given relaxation that invoices raised by notified taxpayers during October, 2020 without following e-invoice procedure (i.e. uploading invoice details on e-invoice portal (IRP), obtaining IRN and issuing invoice with QR Code) will be deemed to be valid and no penalty will be there if the IRN for such invoices is obtained within 30 days of date of invoice. Further, vide notifications (Central Tax) 70/2020 and 72/2020 dated 30-9-2020, certain amendments and additions were made in respect of e-invoicing. Below is the summary of amendments: Regarding aggregate turnover threshold, it was specified that those who crossed Rs. 500 Cr. in any preceding financial year from 2017-18 onwards, will be covered. Supplies for ‘exports’ are also specifically i...

1. An offline tool has been made available to the taxpayers to match Input Tax Credit (ITC), as auto populated in their Form GSTR-2B, with their purchase register. This tool will help the taxpayer to compare their ITC as per their Purchase Register, with the ITC as shown available in their auto drafted Form GSTR-2B and thus help them to claim correct ITC, while filing Form GSTR-3B. 2. To use the Matching Offline Tool, taxpayer need to : Download and Install the Offline tool on their system Download the Form GSTR-2B JSON file from the GST portal Prepare purchase register in the template provided with offline tool Total number of documents to match should be preferably be less than 3000 in number. 3. Steps to use the utility: Download the utility from GST common portal by navigating to Downloads>Offline Tools> Matching Offline Tool Open the tool. Following boxes are displayed on Offline tool dashboard page: GSTR-2B Import Purchase Register (PR) Matching Result Import GSTR-2B JSON f...

The Reserve Bank of India(RBI) issued its Bi-Monthly Monetary Policy Statement via a Press Release. RBI Governor Shaktikant Das addressed the media and put forward the highlights and the major changes that have been brought in by the Monetary Policy Committee. Similar to the June 2020 Monetary Policy Statement, this time too, RBI focused on easing the financial stress caused by the Covid-19 Disruptions. Following are the focal points of the Monetary Policy Statement issued by RBI today: 1.Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) decided to keep the Repo Rate unhinged at 4 Percent. Consequently, the Reverse Repo Rate stands at 3.35 Percent and the Bank Rate stands at 4.25 Percent. The MPC decided to continue with the accomodative stance to revive growth and mitigate the impact of Covid-19 on the Indian Economy, while ensuring that inflation remains within the target going forward.  Assessments of Global Economy 1.MPC has assessed that the Contractions in the economic activity have been more ...

Ministry of Finance(MoF) vide its Press Release dated 15th July 2020 issued " Clarification on the issue of GST Rate on Alcohol-based Hand Sanitizers ". This Clarification seeks to declutter the issues surrounding the Alcohol-Based Hand Sanitizers since many representations were made to MoF seeking exemption from GST for the Hand Sanitizers on account of them being essential goods in the times of Covid-19 Pandemic. This Clarification has finally put to rest the misinformation about the applicability and rate of GST for Hand Sanitizers.A Recent AAR Ruling  issued on 29th June 2020 by Goa Authority for Advance Ruling prescribed a rate of 18% for Alcohol-Based Hand Sanitizers by categorizing them under HSN Code 3808. However, the limitation of the applicability of AAR Ruling still made the issue unresolved within the Industry. Thus, with this clarification, MoF has made it clear that hand sanitizers shall attract the rate of 18% under GST. It also clarified that Inputs for manu...