New Delhi

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will chair the 44th meeting of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council today which is expected to take a decision on relief in respect of COVID-19 related individual items based on the report of Group of Ministers.

The meeting will take place at 11 am and Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur along with finance ministers and senior officials of states and union territories (UT) will be in attendance.

At its meeting on May 28, the GST Council had recommended full exemption from IGST on a number of specified COVID-19 related goods such as medical oxygen, oxygen concentrators, and other oxygen storage and transportation equipment, certain diagnostic markers test kits, and COVID-19 vaccines even if imported on payment basis for donating to the government or on the recommendation of state authority to any relief agency.

The exemption is valid up to August 31 this year.

As regards individual items, the GST Council decided to constitute a Group of Ministers (GoM) "to go into the need for further relief to COVID-19 related individual items immediately".

The Council also decided to reduce the compliance burden of small taxpayers and medium-sized taxpayers and recommended an amnesty scheme for reducing late fee payable, to provide relief to small taxpayers.