GST Council Meet stands adjourned till Feb 24

The GST Council has deferred a decision on tax rates on real estate and lottery till Sunday, and extended the deadline for businesses to file sales returns for January till Friday.

New Delhi: The 33rd GST Council meet stands adjourned till February 24, Sunday. The decisions related to the GST on real estate will be taken in its next meet on Sunday.

Briefing reporters after a meeting of the GST Council on Wednesday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, because of the rush of filing of returns, the due date has been extended till February 22 for all states; and February 28 for Jammu & Kashmir.

The due date for filing summary sales return - GSTR-3B - is February 20.

With regard to goods and Services Tax (GST) rate on under-construction housing properties, Jaitley said, since certain states wanted physical meeting for this agenda, hence, the Council would meet again on February 24 to take a decision.

“Today's meeting has been adjourned till Sunday,” Jaitley said, adding discussion on real estate and lottery will continue.

...there was a discussion on issues related to real estate. Most of the members wanted to discuss it today itself but there were few others who wanted to discuss it in a physical meeting", Jaitley said, adding that he then decided to adjourn it till Sunday. "Today is Wednesday, it will be held on Sunday at 2 PM in Delhi as an adjourned meeting. And the discussion that remained inconclusive would be finished on the day," the minister added.

The GST Council meet was headed by the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. The other members of the committee are West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra, Kerala Finance Minister Thomas Isaac, Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal, Goa Panchayat Minister Mauvin Godinho, Karnataka Finance Minister Krishna Byre Gowda, Arunachal Tax and Excise Minister Jarkar Gamlin.

What is GSTR-3B?

Goods and Services Tax Return (GSTR)-3B has been introduced after the implementation of the GST regime on 1 July 2017. The GSTR-3B is meant to simplify the process of filing of returns by the holders of GST Identification Number i.e. GSTIN.

Unlike the other GST tax returns like GSTR1, which contain specific invoice details, GSTR-3B is a kind of self-declaration form and contains the summary of the information on purchase and sale.
Before today’s change, the due date for filing GSTR 3B used to be the 20th upcoming month.

(Inputs from PTI)