GST Council meets: GST on cancer drugs reduced from 12 to 5%, 18% tax on electricity connection scrapped

GST on cancer drugs has been reduced. Now only 5% GST has to be paid on cancer drugs instead of 12%. The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council met on Monday. This important decision was taken in it. One has to wait till November to take a health insurance policy and get relief in paying the premium. The GST Council has agreed on this. A Group of Ministers (GoM) has been formed under the leadership of Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Chaudhary to consider this issue. The group is expected to report by the end of October. This will be considered in the next meeting of the council. Even the 18% GST which was to be levied on electricity connection will not be levied now. Due to this, new electricity connections will be cheaper by around 1000 rupees. For a long time, online gaming companies have been pushing for tax reduction, but the issue was not discussed in the GST Council meeting. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the tax received from online gaming has increased four times to 6,099 crores in 6 months. Two reports of groups of ministers on real estate and tax simplification were presented in the meeting. A group of ministers will hold an important meeting on September 23 to simplify the tax regime of GST. Uttarakhand Finance Minister Prem Chand Agarwal said that the tax on helicopter service for pilgrims on pilgrimages like Kedarnath, Badrinath has also been reduced from 18 percent to 5 percent. The issue was unclear until now. Now it is clear. Also, he said that he has recommended to the committee to apply 18 percent GST on payment agreements like BillDesk and CCAvenue for digital transactions of small amounts up to Rs 2000 through debit and credit cards. Currently, aggregators are allowed to pay GST on transactions below Rs 2000. Abolition of compensation cess will be considered relief for traders

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