After tax cut in corporate tax from 30 per cent to 22 per cent, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman gave further boost to India Inc. sentiments in the 37th GST Council meeting in Goa on Friday. The council has lowered tax on a number of goods and services to boost demand, and the key sectors to get the benefit from GST rate cuts include hotels, gems & jewellery, defence and automobiles.

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The rate cuts announced following the GST Council meeting will also extend benefits to MSMEs. Welcoming the GST Council meeting announcements, Vinod Subramanian, CEO - Logo Infosoft (irisVyapaari), said. "The measures announced in the 37th GST Council meeting will give tremendous benefits to the MSMEs as the rate reduction for jobs helps in positive cash flows, for the cash starved MSMEs."

"Relaxation in the annual return filing with turnover less than Rs 200 lakhs will help them with compliance costs. We see deferring of the New Return formats also help in changing of the accounting polices from beginning of the Financial year compared to middle of the year," Vinod Subramanian added.

The Council has also made filing of annual return optional for small taxpayers below the annual threshold of Rs 2 crore for FY18 and FY19.

The GST rebate to hotels of various categories will boost the hotels and hospitality sector. The Finance Minister said that hotels room with tariff of Rs 7,500 crore would now attract 18 per cent GST from 28 per cent earlier.

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Notably, the hotel rooms costing between Rs 1,000 and Rs 7,500 would attract 12 per cent GST, and there would be no tax on hotel rooms with rental upto Rs 1,000.