GST hiring rules may be eased

livemint.com:

NEW DELHI : Federal indirect tax body the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council meeting on Saturday will consider relaxing the norms for appointing members to the planned 31 GST appellate tribunals so that these dispute redressal forums can start their work quickly, said a person informed about the development. The tribunals need to be quickly put in motion to sort out growing tax disputes as the new indirect tax regime is now into its seventh year and GST audits have picked up pace recently.

“The proposals are for relaxation in the criteria for appointing members with the idea of filling the vacancies quickly," said the person quoted above. As per the CGST Act, high court judges, district judges qualified to be a high court judge or a member of the Indian Legal Service having served as an additional secretary can be a judicial member.

The law also prescribes that Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officials in the indirect tax stream and state officials in the field of tax and finance can be appointed as technical members in the appellate tribunal. Broadening the pool of candidates to include certain classes of experienced professionals such as chartered accountants will help in early operationalisation of the tribunals, said the person cited above, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Analysts believe that these tribunals would start functioning in about three-four months. An email sent to the spokesperson for finance ministry and to the GST Council secretariate on Thursday seeking comments for the story remained unanswered at the time of publishing.

The Council is also expected to discuss the implementation of 28% tax on online gaming, casinos and race courses, which kicked in from 1 October. The sector has witnessed intense