Nagpur: The GST council on Friday decided that online food-delivery platforms such as Zomato and Swiggy will now be liable to pay goods and services tax to the central government.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the food delivery platforms will now have to pay GST on restaurant services supplied by them and the tax will be charged at the point of delivery.
A whole 5 per cent will be levied at the point where the delivery is made by the online food platform, added Sitharaman.
“There is no new tax added,” the finance minister added. She further claimed that the government has been working on a proposal to ask the food delivery apps to collect the GST and submit it to the government instead of the restaurants.
Revenue secretary Tarun Bajaj after the meeting said that no new taxes were being announced, instead, only the GST collection point has been transferred.
“Suppose you order food from the aggregator… Now the restaurant is paying taxes. But we found some restaurants were not paying. We are now saying that if you order, the aggregator will collect from the consumer and pay to the authorities instead of the restaurant doing this…” Bajaj said.
Key highlights from the GST meeting:
- The GST council approved the proposal of reducing the GST from 12 per cent to 5 per cent to seven more drugs till December 31, 2021. These drugs include Itolizumab, Posaconazole, Infliximab, Bamlanivimab and Etesevimab, Casirivimab and Imdevimab, 2-Deoxy-D-Glucose and Favipiravir.
- Sitharaman says petrol will not come under the ambit of GST
- GST rate on biodiesel has been reduced to 5 per cent from the existing 12 per cent
- Certain kinds of pens and parts at are charged 12 per cent, however it has been decided to mark rate on all pens and parts at 18 per cent
Further, the GST council has decided that two groups of ministers will be constituted to look into the GST regime:
- The first group will look at the rate rationalization issues and submit a report in two months
- THE Other group will look into issues related to e-way bills, fastags, technology, composition schemes and compliances. This group too will be submitting a report in two months.
