Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will chair the GST Council meeting on June 22. This will be the first meeting of the Council after the General Election and after October 7 last year.

“The 53rd meeting of the GST Council will be held on June 22, 2024 at New Delhi,” GST Council said in a social media post on X. Rule says that the Council should meet once every three months. However, because of the Parliament election and some of the State Assembly elections, the meeting could not take place.

Though, the agenda is yet to be prepared for the meeting, however, it is believed that the meeting will have long list of items. Also, just before the formal council meeting, Sitharaman may have pre budget consultation with States and UTs.

One of the key issues to be watched would be a review of 28 per cent GST on online gaming, casinos and horse racing as decided last year. GST on online gaming has been a contentious issue. Earlier, online gaming companies supplying actionable claims were levying GST at the rate of 18 per cent on platform fees ranging from 5-20 per cent of the full-face value, disputing the 28 per cent levy on actionable claims in the form of betting and gambling supplied in online gaming before various legal fora.

However, in its meeting on July 11 last year, the GST Council recommended that actionable claims supplied in casinos, horse racing, and online gaming be leviable to a GST rate of 28 per cent and carried out amendments in the law to remove any ambiguity. In the 51st GST Council meeting held on August 2 last year, a few States requested that the matter be reconsidered, and after a detailed discussion, the GST Council decided to continue with its earlier recommendation.

Later, the law was amended, and then there was a spurt in issuing show-cause notices. Though the government said that amendments in law are clarificatory and has always maintained that the 28 per cent rate is applicable from July 1, 2017, online gaming companies alleged that the amendment in law is retrospective in nature and, accordingly, show-cause notices have been issued.

The second issue to watch is the development of rate rejig. Though a Group of Ministers under the convenorship of Uttar Pradesh’s Finance Minister Suresh Khanna has yet to finalise the recommendations on rate rationalisation, some indication is expected on this issue. Also, the GoM itself needs to be restructured as one of its past members, Vijay Kumar Sinha, is no longer handling the Finance portfolio in Bihar.

• Read: Online Gaming & Casino tops GST evasion cases, DGGI data shows

Another issue to watch is correcting the inverted duty structure (IDS) for various sectors, such as textiles and fertiliser. In fact, the correction for the textile sector has been put in abeyance after much political opposition. Meanwhile, some relief to the fertiliser companies is on the cards as the GST Council is likely to recommend issuing a circular for releasing refunds due to the inverted duty structure and subsidy.

Automobile companies are also expecting some relief on two-wheelers. As of date, the government levies 28 per cent GST (plus 3 per cent cess on models above 350cc) on scooters and motorcycles that run on fossil fuels at par with four-wheelers. There are demands that it should be lowered as it is not a product like a car and is used by lower-income groups and also in rural areas.