GST rates will come down further: Nirmala Sitharaman

Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said the GST rates will come down further and the work on rationalising tax rates and slabs has "almost reached a finale”.

She said that the revenue neutral rate (RNR) has come down from 15.8 per cent at the time of the launch of GST on July 1, 2017, to 11.4 per cent in 2023.”It will come down even further down,” the minister added.

The GST Council, headed by Sitharaman and comprising her state counterparts, in September 2021, set up a group of ministers (GoM) to rationalise GST rates and suggest changes in slabs. The GoM comprises finance ministers of 6 states.

Responding to a question at ’The Economic Times Awards’ on whether it is time to rationalise GST rates and slabs, Sitharaman said ”that work has almost reached a finale”.”Now, at this stage, there is one more look that I would (take) the groups (GoM) have done excellent work, but I still have taken it upon myself to, once more, completely review each of the groups’ works, and then probably take it to take it to the Council to see if we can come to a final conclusion on this,” she said.

Sitharaman said some more work is required on rate rationalisation.”We’ll take it to the next council (meeting). We are very close to coming to a final call on some of the very critical issues, reduction, rationalisation of rates, looking at the number of slabs and so on,” she said.

To a question on the reasons for stock market volatility and how the path towards more calm markets playing out, Sitharaman said, ”It is like asking will the world be calm, will the wars come to an end, will the Red Sea be safer, will there be no sea pirates. Can I comment on it or any of you can comment”.On public sector banks’ stake dilution, Sitharaman said the government is committed to increasing the public float.”We want to have more retail investors in public sector banks,” she said.