Important Updates of 31st Meet of GST Council

The GST Coun­cil in its 31st meet­ing held today at New Del­hi made the fol­low­ing pol­i­cy recommendations:

1) The due date for fur­nish­ing the annu­al returns in FORM GSTR‑9, FORM GSTR-9A and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion state­ment in FORM GSTR-9C for the Finan­cial Year 2017 – 2018 shall be fur­ther extend­ed till 30.06.2019.

2) ITC in rela­tion to invoic­es issued by the sup­pli­er dur­ing FY 2017–18 may be availed by the recip­i­ent till the due date for fur­nish­ing of FORM GSTR-3B for the month of March, 2019, sub­ject to spec­i­fied conditions.

3) Late fee shall be com­plete­ly waived for all tax­pay­ers in case FORM GSTR‑1, FORM GSTR-3B &FORM GSTR‑4 for the months / quar­ters July, 2017 to Sep­tem­ber, 2018, are fur­nished after 22.12.2018 but on or before 31.03.2019.

4) The new return fil­ing sys­tem shall be intro­duced on a tri­al basis from 01.04.2019 and on manda­to­ry basis from 01.07.2019.

5) Tax­pay­ers who have not filed the returns for two con­sec­u­tive tax peri­ods shall be restrict­ed from gen­er­at­ing e‑way bills. This pro­vi­sion shall be made effec­tive once GSTN/NIC make avail­able the required functionality.

6) GST Rates of 7 items reduced from 28% to 18% . Items include tyres, VCR, bil­liards & snook­ers and lithi­um batteries.

7) GST Rate of 33 items have come down from 18% tax slab to 12% and 5% tax brack­et as they are com­mon man’s con­sump­tion goods. These items include Third Par­ty insur­ance Vehi­cle and Solar Pow­er Systems

8) The GST Coun­cil is also look­ing into intro­duc­ing com­po­si­tion scheme for the real estate sec­tor. A view on Real Estate sec­tor will be tak­en in next GST Coun­cil meeting

9) A com­po­si­tion Scheme will be framed for Small Ser­vice provider. Thresh­old and mech­a­nism will be decid­ed in next GST Coun­cil Meeting