Piyush Goyal chairs key GST Council meet

A significant GST Council meeting began in the national capital on Saturday with Finance Minister Piyush Goyal chairing it.

This is a day-long meeting with a long-drawn agenda which among other things is likely to approve new return filing mechanism. A discussion on the creation of GST Appellate Tribunal is also possible in addition to the rationalisation of tax rates on a host of goods and services.

Also, this is the 28th meeting of the GST Council and the first without Union minister Arun Jaitley.

Jaitley has addressed all 27 previous meetings of the Council either in person or through video conferencing.

Goyal, who has been given the charge of the finance ministry in Jaitley's absence, is chairing the meeting for the first time.

He is expected to untie the knot around a complex return filing system under GST and announce a single return filing regime at the end of the meeting.

Today's meeting is significant for hoteliers, small artisans and exporters too as the finance minister is expected to hand out some relief to each of them.

Goyal began the meeting by thanking all the states and Union territory governments for rising above politics and extending their whole-hearted support in the implementation of GST in public interest.

The GST Council is the highest decision-making body related to GST matters and till date, it has taken all decisions by consensus.