AAR under GST plagued by conflicting rulings, quality of orders

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) established the Authority for Advance Ruling (AAR) mechanism to offer tax clarity to companies and other assesses. However, conflicting decisions from state-level AARs in certain instances and the jurisdiction limitations of these rulings have rendered them less effective in addressing assesses’ queries.

To address this gap, on December 22, 2018, the GST Council resolved to establish a Centralized Appellate Authority for Advance Ruling. This new authority aims to handle cases where there are conflicting decisions from two or more state appellate advance ruling authorities on the same issue.