GST Council meet begins, tax rate cut on COVID essentials, compensation to states on agenda

Divakar Vijayasarathy, Founder & Managing Partner, DVS Advisors LLP, said the GST Council are meeting after a gap of seven months. This comes in the backdrop of a lot of States raising the issue of non-convening of the meeting for almost 2 quarters. With the revenue expected to decline due to the lockdown and second wave of the ongoing pandemic, the mode of compensation for States for the shortfall is expected to take centre stage. Even last time, there was a lot of confrontation between the States and the Centre on this subject and it finally got resolved. This time as well it is expected to be no different.