GST rates revised: Bank cheques to be taxed; packed curd, food items get costlier 

Centre has decided to levy 18 percent Goods and Services Tax (GST) on bank cheque book/loose leaf cheques and 12 percent on maps, atlas, and globes from July 18.

Similarly, unbranded but pre-packed curd, lassi, buttermilk, food items, grains, etc will be brought under the GST net from the exemption list.

Writing, printing, or drawing ink will also become costlier.

The rate rationalization decision was taken at the two-day 47th GST Council Meeting, chaired by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, which started in Chandigarh on Tuesday.

 GST rates on medical items like ostomy and orthopedic appliances – splints and other fracture appliances, artificial parts of the body, other appliances which are worn or carried, or implanted in the body, to compensate for a defect or disability, and intraocular lens- have come down to five percent from 12 percent.

The GST for transport of goods and passengers by ropeway is down to five percent from 18 percent and the renting of truck/goods carriage where the cost of fuel is included brought down by six percent to 12 percent.

The other items for which GST rates have been increased are printing, writing or drawing ink (12 percent to 18 percent), knives with cutting blades, paper knives, pencil sharpeners, and blades therefor, spoons, forks, ladles, skimmers, cake servers, etc (12 percent to 18 percent), power-driven pumps primarily designed for handling water such as centrifugal pumps, deep tube-well turbine pumps, submersible pumps; bicycle pumps (12 percent to 18 percent).

The rate on machines for cleaning, sorting or grading seed, and grain pulses, machinery used in the milling industry or for the working of cereals, etc, ‘pawan chakki’, or air-based atta chakki, wet grinder goes up from five percent to 18 percent.

Machines for cleaning, sorting, or grading eggs, fruit, or other agricultural produce and its parts, milking machines, and dairy machinery will have rates going up from 12 percent to 18 percent.

LED lamps, lights, and fixtures, their metal printed circuits board, drawing and marking instruments move up from 12 percent to 18 percent, and solar water heater and systems, prepared/finished leather/chamois leather/composition leathers from five percent to 12 percent.

In respect of the services, the rates have been revised upwards in the case of services supplied by a foreman in a chit fund, job work about the processing of hides, skins and leather, leather goods and footwear, manufacture of clay bricks, and works contract for roads, bridges, railways, metro, effluent treatment plant, crematorium, and others.

The concessional rates for electronic waste, petroleum, and coal bed methane have also been increased.

Exemption on the transport of passengers by air to and from North-East states and Bagdogra is being restricted to economy class.

Hotel accommodation, priced up to Rs 1,000 per day, shall be taxed at 12 percent and room rent (excluding ICU) exceeding Rs 5,000 per day per patient charged by a hospital shall be taxed to the extent of the amount charged for the room at five percent without the input tax credit.

Tax exemption on training or coaching in recreational activities relating to arts or culture or sports is being restricted to such services when supplied by an individual.

Exemption on the following services is being withdrawn – transportation by rail or a vessel of railway equipment and material, storage or warehousing of commodities that attract tax (nuts, spices, copra, jaggery, cotton, etc.), fumigation in a warehouse of agricultural produce, services by the RBI, the IRDA, the SEBI, and the FSSAI, GSTN, renting of a residential dwelling to business entities (registered persons), and services provided by the cord blood banks by way of preservation of stem cells.