GST Council Meeting: Centre-State IGST Panel To Address Negative Balance Issue

A newly constituted State-Centre Integrated GST panel will convene on Friday to discuss ways to tackle the "negative balance" on Integrated Goods and Services Tax, a finance ministry official said.

"The panel will convene its first meeting on Friday, where it will focus on ways to streamline the entire process and address this negative balance," an official told NDTV Profit. The panel will also look into the mechanism of retrieving excess IGST collection disbursed to states, he added.

The negative balance issue arises when buyers take input tax credit on the GST paid to sellers on purchase of goods. However, if the seller cancels the invoice, it shows as a negative balance at the buyer's end in the GST portal.

The panel, convened by Additional Revenue Secretary Vivek Aggarwal, was tasked with resolving the issue pertaining to the distribution of IGST among states, the official said.

This meeting follows the 54th GST Council meeting on Sept. 9, which discussed the negative balance issue.

The panel has been asked to submit its report to the GST Council by the end of October, the people quoted above said, adding that the report will likely be taken up by the GST Council meeting in November.

(This is a developing story.)