Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman-led GST Council meet is set for Friday and there are a number of critical things on its agenda. Notably, this is the 35th meeting of the GST Council, however under Finance Minister Sitharaman, this will be the first. 

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What is on GST Council agenda?

1. GST Council will consider slashing GST rate on electric vehicles from 12 per cent currently to 5 per cent
2. Consider extending the tenure of the National Anti-Profiteering Authority (NAA) by a year till November 30, 2020, as the authority continues to receive consumer complaints of profiteering against companies.
3. Anti-evasion steps such as integration of e-way bill with NHAI's FASTag from April 1, 2010.
4. Asking businesses with a turnover of over Rs 50 crore to issue e-invoice for B2B (business-to-business) sales
5. Asking states to make e-ticketing mandatory for all movie halls.
6. Consider tweaking GST rate on lotteries - currently, a state-organised lottery attracts 12 per cent GST, while a state-authorised lottery attracts 28 per cent tax.
7. Discuss a mechanism for single-point sanctioning and processing GST refunds.
8. Deliberate on setting up a national bench of the Appellate Authority for Advance Ruling to reconcile the contradictory orders on similar issues passed by the Authority for Advance Ruling in different states, a move aimed at providing certainty to taxpayers.
9. Give a push to manufacturing electric vehicles, the Council will consider slashing GST rates to 5 per cent from 12 per cent.
10. Discuss the proposal of integrating e-way bill with NHAI's FASTag mechanism from April 1, 2020. Such an integration would help find the location of the vehicle and when and how many times it has crossed NHAI's toll plazas and restrict transporters from doing multiple trips by generating a single e-way bill.
11. Consider another anti-evasion proposal of issuance of e-invoices on a centralised government portal by businesses with turnover of Rs 50 crore and above for B2B sales.