The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council is going to meet today to explore maximising the realisation of revenue by checking tax evasion and most likely to make any changes in the tax rates, says sources.
Ahead of the council meet, T S Singhdeo, Chhattisgarh Minister for public health and commercial taxes (GST) after having a meeting with the Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman told media that GST rate change proposals are unlikely to be discussed at the meeting.
Further, prior to any tax rate revisions, revenue realisation should be optmised at ongoing tax rates by addressing areas of revenue leakage, the minister said.
At a media briefing last week, union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman refused to answer any question directly on the possibility of GST rate changes, saying there was rumors about it everywhere, except in her office.
The government may think about implementing additional surcharges over the current GST slabs to boost tax collections and split revenues equally between Centre and state via SGST and CGST, said sources. This however has not been mentioned in the agenda document.
