Do you have to pay tax on pooja items like Gangajal, Agarbattis? Find out

financialexpress.com:

Amid the growing criticism by the Congress on the GST imposed on ‘Gangajal’, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs on Thursday issued a clarification saying that this important part of ‘pooja samagri’ is exempted from any kind of taxation. Earlier in the day, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge took to X (formerly Twitter) over GST on Gangajal. In his post, Kharge claimed that the Narendra Modi government has imposed 18 per cent GST on Gangajal. In his post in Hindi, he said that the decision to impose GST on Gangajal was sheer ‘loot’ by the Modi government. Hours later, the CBIC issued a statement and said that there was no GST on Gangajal.

मोदी जी,

एक आम भारतीय के जन्म से लेकर उसकी जीवन के अंत तक मोक्षदायिनी माँ गंगा का महत्त्व बहुत ज़्यादा है।

अच्छी बात है की आप आज उत्तराखंड में हैं, पर आपकी सरकार ने तो पवित्र गंगाजल पर ही 18% GST लगा दिया है।

एक बार भी नहीं सोचा कि जो लोग अपने घरों में गंगाजल मँगवाते हैं,… pic.twitter.com/Xqd5mktBZG

“Gangajal is used in pooja by households across the country and puja samagri is exempt under GST. GST on puja samagri was discussed in detail in the 14th and 15th meetings of GST Council held on 18/19 May 2017 and 3rd June 2017 respectively and decided to keep them in the exempt list. Therefore, all these items have been exempt since the introduction of GST,” the CBIC said in the clarification.

According to the official list provided by the CBIC on its website, while agarbatti has the GST of 5 per cent, other pooja samagri such as dhoop, dhoop batti also carry similar tax slab of 5 per cent.

The goods and services tax or GST system was introduced by the Modi government during its first time on July 1st, 2017. There are four tax slabs under GST system. They are 5 per cent, 12