The 35th GST Council meeting headed by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday extended the date for filing annual returns under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime to 30 August from the earlier 30 June deadline.

In its first meeting after the recently conducted general elections, the council made some important announcements:

• The new one-form new GST return filing system, the transistion plan for which was communicated earlier this month, was introduced. It will be applicable from 1 January, 2020.
• An electronic invoicing system and e-ticketing in multiplexes was approved.
• The GST Council also eased the process to register on the GST Network by allowing the use of Aadhaar by businesses.
• The tenure of the the National Anti-Profiteering Authority (NAA) was extended by two years. The anti-profiteering authority is the watchdog that deals with complaints by consumers against companies for not passing on GST rate cut benefits.
• The imposition of a penalty of up to 10 percent on entities was approved for not passing on benefits of GST rate cuts to consumers.
• The proposal to reduce GST rate on electric vehicles to 5 percent from the current 12percent has been sent to fitment committee
• The fitment committee will also decide on the proposal to bring down the GST rate on electric charger to 12 percent from the present 18 percent.