The 42nd GST Council met under the Chairmanship of Union Finance & Corporate Affairs Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman via video conferencing today i.e. 05th day of October, 2020 via video conferencing in New Delhi.

Union minister of state (MoS) for finance Anurag Thakur and finance ministers of states and Union territories (UTs) are also attending the virtual meeting, which is being held to finalise modalities to compensate states for their revenue shortfall of Rs 2.35 lakh crore in the current financial year.

Previous meeting: The GST Council last met on August 27 and had presented two options to the states regarding GST compensation.

42nd GST Council Meeting Key Highlights

1. Compensation cess:
   Compensation cess collected this year so far, amounting to approximately to Rs 20,000 crore, will get disbursed to all states tonight. The GST council also decided to extend the compensation cess beyond June 2022.
    
2. Integrated GST:
   Rs 24,000 crore of IGST to be released to the states -- which had received less earlier -- will be disbursed by the end of next week.
    
3. Filing monthly returns:
   From the first of January onwards, taxpayers with annual turnover less than Rs 5 crore will not be required to file monthly returns (GSTR-3B and GSTR-1). They will only file quarterly returns.
    
4. Relief to small taxpayers:
   GST Council's decision to make returns for small taxpayers on a quarterly basis rather than monthly basis will be a major relief. Number of returns comes down from 24 monthly returns to 8 returns, from January 1, 2021.
    
5. GST Council exempts satellite launch services by ISRO, Antrix:
   To encourage domestic launching of satellites particularly by young start-ups, the satellite launch services supplied by ISRO, Antrix Corporation Ltd. and NSIL would be exempted.
    
6. GST compensation issue:
   The payment of GST compensation to states became an issue after revenues from the imposition of cess started dwindling since August 2019. The Centre had to dive into the excess cess amount collected during 2017-18 and 2018-19. The compensation payout amount was Rs 69,275 crore in 2018-19 and Rs 41,146 crore in 2017-18.
    
7. Enhancement in features of return filing:
   With a view to further enhance Ease of Doing Business and improve the compliance experience, the Council has approved the future roadmap for return filing under GST.
   The approved frameworkaims to simplify return filing and further reduce the taxpayer’s compliance burden in this regard significantly, such that the timely furnishing of details of outward supplies (GSTR-1) by a taxpayer and his suppliers would:
   allow him to view the ITC available in his electronic credit ledger from all sources i.e. domestic supplies, imports and payments on reverse charge etc. prior to the due date for payment of tax, and enable the system to auto-populate return (GSTR-3B)through the data filed by the taxpayer and all his suppliers.
    
8. The Council recommended / decided the following:
   
   1. Due date of furnishing quarterly GSTR-1 by quarterly taxpayers to be revised to 13th of the month succeeding the quarterw.e.f. 01.1.2021;
   2. Roadmap for auto-generation of GSTR-3B from GSTR-1s by:
      
      • Auto-population of liability from own GSTR-1 w.e.f. 01.01.2021; and
      • Auto-population of input tax credit from suppliers’ GSTR-1s through the newly developed facility in FORM GSTR-2B for monthly filers w.e.f. 01.01.2021 and for quarterly filers w.e.f. 01.04.2021
   3. In order to ensure auto population of ITC and liability in GSTR 3B as detailed above, FORM GSTR 1would be mandatorily required to be filed before FORM GSTR3B w.e.f. 01.04.2021.
   4. The present GSTR-1/3B return filing system to be extended till 31.03.2021 and the GST laws to be amended to make the GSTR-1/3B return filing system as the default return filing system.
       
9. Revised Requirement of declaring HSN for goods and SAC for services in invoices:
   
   • Revised Requirement of declaring HSN for goods and SAC for services in invoices and in FORM GSTR-1w.e.f. 01.04.2021 as under:
     
     • HSN/SAC at 6 digits for supplies of both goods and services for taxpayers with aggregate annual turnover above Rs. 5 crores;
     • HSN/SAC at 4 digits for B2B supplies of both goods and services for taxpayers with aggregate annual turnover upto Rs. 5 crores;
     • Government to have power to notify 8 digit HSN on notified class of supplies by all taxpayers.
        
10. Refund to be paid/disbursed
    Refund to be paid/disbursed in a validated bank account linked with the PAN &Aadhaar of the registrant w.e.f. 01.01.2021.
    Upcoming meet:  12th October 2020, to further deliberate on compensating states for GST cess shortfall.
    In no event the author shall be liable for any direct, indirect, special or incidental damage resulting from or arising out of or in connection with the use of this information.