GST Council to meet on 7 October to iron out setting up of GST appellate tribunals

The federal indirect tax body, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council, will meet on 7 October to iron out certain issues relating to setting up of GST appellate tribunal and its benches across the country.

The 52nd meeting of the council will be held in the capital, the council said in a social media post. However, the post did not divulge the specific agenda for the meeting. According to an individual familiar with government discussions, the meeting is anticipated to be brief and is convened to examine specific technical details related to the establishment of the tribunals.

“There may not be any tax rate changes,” the person said on condition of anonymity.

The government earlier this month notified the setting up of 31 GST appellate tribunal benches across the country giving effect to a long overdue measure to ensure quick resolution of disputes between government and businesses and central and state governments over GST. As per that order, Uttar Pradesh has three benches, while Karnataka and Rajasthan have two each and one for northeastern states.

Once operational, the tribunal benches are expected to reduce the burden on high courts. Experts said that they expect the tribunals to be functional in about three to four months given the need to set up infrastructure and make appointments.

The benches are to have representation from both the centre and states. The setting up of appellate tribunals completes an important pillar of the GST architecture as it will have a dedicated dispute resolution platform.

The GST regime has seen disputes over several issues so far including those relating to input tax credit availability, refunds, ocean freight and online gaming. Tribunals are the final fact-finding authorities and therefore a lot of disputes get resolved at this level.

An email sent to the finance ministry seeking comments for the story remained unanswered at the time of publishing.