GST COUNCIL

GST COUNCIL

Subject : National Organisations

Context : West Bengal finance minister Amit Mitra has written to Union FM Nirmala Sitharaman to urgently convene a meeting of the GST Council and discuss the issue of compensation shortfall to states and other pending items.

Concept :

GST Council

• It is a constitutional body under Article 279A. It makes recommendations to the Union and State Government on issues related to Goods and Service Tax and was introduced by the Constitution (One Hundred and First Amendment) Act, 2016.
• The GST Council is chaired by the Union Finance Minister and other members are the Union State Minister of Revenue or Finance and Ministers in-charge of Finance or Taxation of all the States.
• It is considered as a federal body where both the centre and the states get due representation.
• Every decision of the Goods and Services Tax Council shall be taken at a meeting by a majority of not less than three-fourths of the weighted votes of the members present and voting, in accordance with the following principles, namely:
• the vote of the Central Government shall have a weightage of one third of the total votes cast, and
• the votes of all the State Governments taken together shall have a weightage of two-thirds of the total votes cast, in that meeting.
• Economic Survey 2017-18 also hailed the GST Council for its cooperative federalism technology which brings together the Center and States and can be applied to many other policy reforms.