GST Meeting To Review Slab Rates: Markets Show Positive Behaviour

New Delhi: Goods and Service Tax Council is scheduled to take place on Wednesday which is expected to review the compensation cess rates on various items to boost the government revenue. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is expected to increase the GST rates and some changes in the GST slabs are also expected in today's meeting.

Many assumptions have arisen with this meeting as there have been talks of decreasing the number of slabs of the GST Tax rates which in turn would increase the rates of GST on several items. This is done to meet the revenue shortfall of the government. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will chair the GST Council meet. This would be the 38th meeting of the council after the implementation on one nation one tax system in the country.

Agendas of the Meeting:

1. The meeting will review the GST and compensation cess rates on various items on priority basis.
2. It would rate the calibrations for addressing the inverted duty structure.
3. A review would be done over the compliance measures other than those that are currently implemented to increase the revenue.

Market ahead of GST Council Meet:

1. It is worth mentioning that the traders are expecting good news ahead of such meeting. Sensex too jumped 129 points to reach a lifetime high of 41,480.91 in the opening session of Wednesday.
2. The market is expecting a hike in jewellery rates in the council meeting. This has led to an increase in gold prices to Rs 200 per 10 gm in just two days.

To be mentioned that ahead of the meeting  the Centre has released Rs 35,298 crore as compensation to States and Union Territories to make up for the loss of revenue due to GST rollout as the Central GST collection had fallen short of the Budget Estimate by nearly 40 per cent during the April-November period of 2019-20. The Finance Ministry, thus, has set a Rs. 1.1 lakh crore monthly GST collection target for the remaining four months of 2019-20 financial year.