• Notification Date: 18-11-2022
• Notification No: N/A

Amit Mitra Urges Union Finance Minister to hold GST Meeting

Chief advisor of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Amit Mitra, and the former member of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council has urged the Union Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday to hold a meeting for the GST Council to decide upon the outstanding tax policy issues on a consensus basis.   

The GST Council has not held a meeting in the last four months. The Council is supposed to meet in every four months every year. Mitra pointed out to the Union Finance Minister that as per the procedures of the GST Council, it is mandatory to hold a meeting at least once every quarter. He also highlighted that the outcome of two ministerial groups that were formed last year still awaits finality. Only an interim report has been submitted by one of the groups. A ministerial panel was set up by the GST Council last year to look into tax rate rationalisation and another to study taxation of casinos, race courses and online gaming. Mr. Mitra has urged the Union finance minister to seek finality to the pending matters before the ministerial groups through consensus.  

He appealed to Sitharaman to validate the work that is being done by the states when the matter of GST revenue collection comes to the surface. This would be a gesture of honour towards the true spirit of federalism. An email that was sent to the spokesperson for the Union finance ministry on Wednesday remained unanswered at the time of publishing.