• Notification Date: 07.02.2022
• Notification No: N/A

ATF to be Included in GST by the Government

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has stated last Sunday that there will be a new issue of discussion in the upcoming meeting of the GST Council. There is a major concern regarding the rising fuel prices across the globe. Hence, there is a necessity of including aviation turbine fuel (ATF) into the goods and service tax regime.

GST was first introduced in India in July 2017. Five commodities, namely, crude oil, natural gas, petrol, diesel and ATF were excluded from the provisions of the GST. The decision of excluding these commodities from GST was taken keeping the revenue dependence of the central and state governments of the sector in mind.  

Finance Minister has declared that the decision of including ATF under the GST provisions will be finally taken in the GST Council meeting. The meeting will be attended by the finance ministers of the state and central governments. Hence, the final decision will be the amalgamated decision of both governments.

The idea was expressed by the Founder of SpiceJet, Ajay Singh. He had sought the support of the Union Finance Minister to include ATF into GST. According to him, the oil comes at the cost of USD 90. A dollar is equal to 75 rupees. This has caused chronic illness in the civil aviation sector.

The inclusion of ATF into the GST regime will help in setting off tax that has been paid on input by several companies. It will also help in bringing uniformity in the tax structure on fuels in the country.

According to the Finance Minister, the airliner sector is facing major loss since the price of fuel has rapidly increased after the pandemic. Nirmala Sitharaman has committed to speaking with the banks to settle the financial crises faced by the airline sector.

As Mr Singh has said, the government should intervene in the matter and ask the financial sectors for providing necessary support to the airline's sector. Finance Minister has replied to his appeal by saying that the outbreak of Omicron has further restricted the movement of people. The necessity of declaring a nationwide lockdown has become mandatory which has caused massive losses in the airline sector across the world.