GST Council meet on Saturday to discuss tax cut on Covid essentials

A meeting will be held by the GST council to decide the fate of tax rates for COVID essentials and black fungus medicine.

The all-powerful GST Council, chaired by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, will meet on June 12 to decide on a GST rate cut for COVID essentials and black fungus medicine, according to officials. In the previous meeting on May 28, the Council, which has state ministers as members, a Group of Ministers (GoM) was set up to recommend tax relief on COVID essentials, including PPE kits, masks and vaccines, to the GST council. The GoM submitted its report on June 7. Officials said the GST Council would be meeting on June 12, to discuss the GoM report as well as consider tax rate cuts for black fungus medicine. Some state Finance Ministers in the GoM are understood to have pitched for a rate cut on COVID essentials.