Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman chaired the 44th meeting of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council today. A decision on relief in respect of COVID-19 related individual items based on the report of the Group of Ministers was taken in the meet.
Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur along with finance ministers and senior officials of states and union territories (UT) were in attendance during the GST Council meeting.
Today's meeting was a single-agenda meeting on the Group of Ministers which was constituted in the last GST Council meeting to come up with recommendations on tax relief for COVID-19 essentials.
The ministry of finance went through the recommendations of the GoMs submitted in their report, said Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
GST rates have been decided for 4 categories of products namely medicines, oxygen, oxygen-generation equipment, testing kits and other machines, and other COVID-19 related relief material which will be announced soon:
Decisions taken
The GST Council has decided to cut the tax rate of Black Fungus drugs and other COVID-19 essential items.
GST on electric furnaces and temperature checking equipment brought down to 5% and on ambulances to 12%.
These rates will be valid till September as against August end recommended by the Group of Ministers.
GST rate on COVID-19 vaccines has been retained at 5%. Centre will buy the 75% vaccine and will pay its GST too.
But 70% of income from Goods and Services Tax GST will be shared with States.
GST Council approves rate reduction for Remdesivir from 12% to 5%; nil tax on Tocilizumab, Amphotericin.
The GST rate on anti-coagulants like Heparin has been lowered from 12% to 5%.
