Sitharaman to chair 43rd GST Council meeting today

According to the official Twitter account of the Ministry of Finance, the meeting is scheduled to begin at 11 am and the Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur along with Finance Ministers and senior officials of all States and Union Territories (UT) are likely to participate.

"Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will chair the 43rd GST Council meeting via video conferencing at 11 AM in New Delhi tomorrow. The meeting will be attended by MOS Anurag Thakur besides Finance Ministers of States and UTs and Senior officers from Union Government and States," Ministry of Finance tweeted on Thursday. On October 5, 2020, the GST Council at its 42nd meeting had decided to extend the levy of compensation cess beyond the transition period of five years for such period as may be required to meet the revenue gap.

The Centre, on the request of states, also decided to increase the shortfall amount to Rs 1.10 lakh crores from Rs 97,000 crores under the borrowing option. Sitharaman had said 21 states have chosen borrowing option 1 for compensation of revenue shortfall due to GST implementation.

She had clarified that the Centre is not denying compensation to any state but those which have not chosen any borrowing option have to borrow from the market. GST Council is the apex body that takes decisions regarding issues of threshold limit for applicability of the tax as well as the limit for dual control between Centre and States.