New Delhi: The Group of Finance Ministers (GOM) of seven states does not seem to be in favour of changing the GST rate or slab at the moment. With this, it has been decided that no decision will be taken regarding the change in rates in the upcoming GST Council meeting to be held on September 9.

A meeting of the GoM was held in New Delhi on Thursday in which changes in GST rates were discussed. The convener of the GoM is Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Chaudhary who said that changes in GST rates will be discussed in detail in future meetings.

No decision was taken in the meeting

No decision was taken in this matter in Thursday's meeting. Other finance ministers also seemed to be of the view that there is no need to change GST rates right now. In the GST Council meeting held in June last, a GoM was formed under the leadership of Chaudhary to consider the change in rates. This group also includes finance ministers of West Bengal, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Rajasthan and Goa.

After the council meeting in June, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that based on the recommendation of the GoM, changes in the GST slabs will be considered in the next meeting of the council. Currently, there are five rates of GST. These include zero, five percent, 12 percent, 18 percent and 28 percent. Apart from this, GST is levied on gold at the rate of three percent.

GST on life and health insurance is also an issue

For some time now, there has been a discussion that if the goods used by most people have 12% GST on them, then that item can be included in the 5% slab. According to sources, the issue of 18% GST on life and health insurance was also raised in the GoM meeting. But no consensus was reached on this either.

A few days ago, in his reply to the budget, the Finance Minister had asked the opposition parties in Parliament that why don't they ask the Finance Ministers of their states to remove the GST on insurance premium. The states benefit more than the Centre from the revenue generated from this.