The maximum has been raised from Rs 1 crore to Rs 2 crore for all crimes outlined by the GST legislation, with the exception of those involving fraudulent invoicing, according to Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra.
According to Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra, the Goods and Services Tax Council on Saturday resolved to decriminalise several offences and boost the threshold for filing a criminal complaint to Rs 2 crore.
Malhotra informed the reporters, “With the exception of offences involving fraudulent invoicing, the cap has been enhanced from Rs 1 crore to Rs 2 crore for criminal offences outlined under the GST laws.”
“The compounding amount has been reduced from 50% to 150% of the tax amount to lessen the workload of courts.” This has been decreased to 25%,’ he continued.
Due to a lack of time, the Council could only settle on eight of the 15 issues on the agenda, according to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Mechanisms to prevent tax evasion in pan masala and gutka enterprises as well as the establishment of appeal tribunals for GST were among the topics that could not be considered.
It was made clear by Sitharaman that no new taxes had been raised during the 48th meeting of the GST Council.
Malhotra claimed that because the report from the Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by Conrad Sangma, the chief minister of Meghalaya, had only recently been submitted, it was impossible to discuss the GST on online gaming and casinos.
In actuality, the GST Council members were not even given a copy of the GoM report.
The highest decision-making body of the one-nation, one-tax GST regime is the GST Council, which is presided over by the Union Finance Minister and includes representation from all states and Union Territories.