PM Modi welcomes fresh GST reforms to ease compliance, speed up refunds | Economy & Policy News

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday welcomed the new round of GST reforms approved by the GST Council and said its focus was to take faster decisions, lower compliance costs and automated refunds.

The prime minister also said that the GST Council’s recommendations on removal of arrest provisions, greater decriminalisation and simpler procedures will have a very positive impact.

The GST Council on Thursday approved removing the arrest power of tax officials and raising the threshold for prosecution fivefold to ₹5 crore, while introducing faster and largely automated refunds for taxpayers.

“I welcome the new round of GST reforms approved by the GST Council,” Modi said in a post on X.

“The focus is clear: Faster decisions. Lower compliance costs. Automated refunds. Trust-based administration,” he said.

Modi said these are in line with the government’s constant efforts to make GST more efficient, transparent and citizen-friendly.

Announcing the decisions taken at the 57th meeting of the GST Council, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said it also decided to bring down the general penalty from ₹25,000 to ₹10,000.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)