4th GST Council Meeting held on 3rd & 4th November, 2016 in New Delhi

The Fourth GST Council Meeting took place in New Delhi. The decisions taken are as under:
1: The tax rate slabs have been fixed at 5 percent, 12 percent, 18 percent, and 28 percent.
2: Essential Commodities, including 50 percent of the goods in the current consumer price (CPI) basket, will be taxed at zero percent under GST.
3: Most other products and services will be taxed at standard tax rates of either 12 or 18 percent.
4: Luxury items such as luxury cars and Aerated Drinks and Sin Goods such as alcohol, and tobacco products which will be attracting a 28 percent tax or more.
5: Finance Minister said "The additional revenue that we will get by this 28 percent category would be used to compensate the other three categories so that the GST itself has a progressive character".
6: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley further added, "Infact, tobacco is about 65 percent andd the others are close to 40 Percent, in some case 40 plus/minus, in that range. So the additonal amont to be charged on these products or any other product which fits into this category would be currently charged as a cess. Now this cess plus the clean energy cess on coal users, jointly will constitute the compensation pool".
7: The money collected via cess over the five year period will be used to compensate the states for the same period. The total compensation amount for the first year is estimated at Rs. 50000 Crore.