The GST Council on Saturday expected to consider issues related to ease of compliance and trade facilitations, especially for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

Sources said that these issues include amending law to give relief to online gaming, casino, and horse racing, setting up monetary threshold for filing appeals before GSTAT, High Court & Supreme Court; a waiver of interest & penalty for three initial years of GST; the facility of refunding additional IGST paid in case of price revision post-export, lowering of pre-deposits for filing appeals; etc. There will be some tweaking in rates on goods & services, but not on a large scale, a source said.

The most important issue likely to be considered is the inclusion of a new section 11A in the CGST Act. This is similar to Section 11C of the Central Excise Act, which empowers the government not to recover the duty of excise not levied or short-levied as a result of general practice. Sources said that this is expected to benefit online gaming, casinos, and horse racing as they are facing huge tax demand on account of the short levy.

As of now, there is no monetary limit for filing an appeal. According to a source, now it is expected that the Council may recommend a ₹20 lakh limit for GSTAT, ₹1 crore for High Courts, and ₹2 crore for the Supreme Court. “This is as per the National Litigation Policy to reduce government litigation and enable the focusing of legal recourses on significant revenue cases and critical policy issues,” a source said.

One key issue is related to waiving interest and penalties during the initial years of the implementation of GST, as errors or mistakes were made due to being unaware of the provisions. “The Law Committee has recommended a waiver of fiscal years 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20, subject to fulfilling certain conditions,” another source said. One condition is that taxpayers should pay the full tax by a notified date. The second condition is that this will not include fraud or willful misstatement cases. Third, this will not cover erroneous refunds. And fourth, no refund for already-paid interest and penalties.

The Council is also expected to take up the proposal of allowing refunds of additional IGST paid on account of upward revisions in the prices of goods post-export.  Another proposal is related to the reduction of pre-deposit amounts to be paid for filing appeals. The source quoted above said that the proposal is to lower the maximum amount to ₹40 crore from ₹50 crore in case an appeal has to be filed before the appellate authority. In the case of the appellate tribunal, this is proposed to be lowered to Rs 40 crore from Rs 100 crore.

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