The GST Council in its 35th meeting today extended the date for filing annual returns under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime by two months to August 30. The Council also decided to introduce a new one-form new GST return filing system, which will be applicable from January 1, 2020. Today’s meeting of the Council was its first after the recently concluded general elections. The GST Council, which is headed by the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, also approved an electronic invoicing system and e-ticketing in multiplexes.

The GST Council also eased the registration process by allowing the use of Aadhaar by businesses to register with GST-Network.

"One of the major changes that we've made is for the ease of GST registration. In the earlier system, people had to give various documents. Now we have decided to use Aadhaar. By using Aadhaar several advantages will occur to the business. The person who is applying can go online, using his Aadhaar number through OTP authentication he can register himself on the GSTN portal and get GSTN registration number," Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey said.

Here are the other decisions announced by the GST Council after today's meeting:

-The Council extended the tenure of the anti-profiteering authority by two years. The anti-profiteering authority deals with complaints by consumers against companies for not passing on GST rate cut benefits.

-It also approved imposition of a penalty of up to 10% on entities not passing on benefits of GST rate cuts to consumers.

-The proposal to reduce GST rate on electric vehicles to 5% from the current 12% has been sent to fitment committee

-The fitment committee will also decide on the proposal to bring down the GST rate on electric charger to 12% from 18% (With Agency Inputs)