The Goods and Services Tax Council on Sunday finalised two rates for lottery and also gave a partial relief to five-star hotels and their restaurants.

While sticking to the rollout date of July 1 for GST, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced relaxations for return filing by trade and industry for the first two months. “This will give the GST Suvidha Providers and assessees sufficient time to prepare their systems,” he said.

Accordingly, for July, assessees will have to self declare and pay the GST through Form 3B by August 20 and for August by September 20.

While they will have to upload invoice-wise data on the GST common portal, the deadline for July has now pushed back to September 5 and for August to September 20. “No late fees or penalty would be levied,” said an official release.

Based on the recommendation of Goa and Rajasthan, the GST Council has increased the tariff threshold for the 28 per cent tax to ₹7,500 per night from the proposed ₹5,000, at present. This would mean that an 18 per cent GST will be levied on bills of ₹2,500 to ₹7,500.

“Similarly, AC restaurants in these hotels would also be taxed at 18 per cent,” Jaitley said after the meeting.

The Council also decided to tax lotteries run by State governments at 12 per cent of the face value and those run by private players but authorised by the States at 28 per cent.

It retained the maximum turnover for the composition scheme to ₹50 lakh for North East States and Himachal Pradesh. For all other States, including Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir, it has been kept at ₹75 lakh.

Manufacturers of ice creams, pan masalas and tobacco have been excluded from the composition scheme.

The Council also decided to defer the implementation of the e-way bill for some time due to a lack of consensus but plans to give full shape to the anti-profiteering authority (APA) by the month-end.

The Council will meet once again on June 30.

Anti-profiteering authority The Council also approved rules relating to advance ruling, appeals and revision, assessment and anti-profiteering.

“We want to keep it as a deterrent and hope we are not compelled to use the APA,” the Finance Minister said.

Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said the rules will be notified by Monday. According to the mechanism, a Standing Committee of officers will review the complaints which will then be investigated by the Directorate General of Safeguards. If found genuine, it will forward the complaint to the APA, which can ask the company to roll-back the price and also refund an amount equal to what it has made through the hike in prices.

“It will have a sunset clause of two years,” Adhia said.

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