GST law set to move smoothly in its tenth year Journey.

I have been continuously writing articles exclusively for taxtmi.com during the last one year with the sole objective of knowledge sharing. Irrespective of the fact as to whether the request put to concerned authority actually reaches them or not, good developments are happening in the recent past. Let us discuss them and put further request for resolution by the GST Council. There may be repetition but it is bound to repeat till such time the issue gets resolved fully.

Part I : Good Developments during last two weeks.

1. The Government has on 30/06/2026 extended the deadline for filing the second appeal for the cases pertaining to the period up to 30/04/2026 till 31/07/2026. This is really a laudable effort on the part of all involved as this single measure may bring in a minimum of 75,000 appeals only during July 2026 in the GSTAT across all benches.
2. As a surprise, order number 156/2026 dated 10/07/2026 was issued by the principal bench of GSTAT which provides for a new mechanism by which a taxpayer who intends to file appeal before GSTAT may generate a token by recording his intention in the GSTAT portal ( which is likely to be in operation during 21/07/2026 till 31/07/2026) and the token shall be valid for filing the GSTAT appeal in total within 60 days from the date of generation of the token. Again, the thinking on this line by NIC, GSTAT and the Government in allowing a genuine taxpayer to file the second appeal in all the deserving cases by adding additional features to overcome the deadline under section 112(1) shall help the taxpayer to a great extent. We may see a minimum of 1,00,000 second appeals in GST during August and September 2026 which would not have been possible, but for the order of GSTAT principal bench dated 10/07/2026.
3. Above all, the most important development, which is available now in public domain is the proposal to remove all the hurdles connected with clause c of sub section 2 of section 16 of the CGST Act, which has adversely affected the genuine buyers who either paid the eligible ITC back to the Government or got relief only at the Jurisdictional High Court. This proposal is only under pipeline and has to be placed in the ensuing GST Council meeting for consideration and approval and on approval, to be notified by the Government. Under these circumstances, it is appealed to all connected with this move to make this effective from 01/07/2017 for all cases which have not attained finality as on date of such announcements to reduce the litigation to a larger extent.
4. The Tripura High Court (DB) [Sri Shekhar Chandra Podder, Prop. of M/s. Shekhar Chandra Podder Versus The Union of India, The Director, Government of India, Ministry of Finance (Department of Revenue), Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, The Chief Commissioner of State Tax, Government of Tripura, The Joint Commissioner of State Tax, Government of Tripura, The Joint Commissioner, Ministry of Finance, Revenue Department, Government of India, Central Goods and Services Tax, Tripura, The Assistant Commissioner (Anti-Evasion), Tripura, The Superintendent of State Tax, Government of Tripura, The Superintendent (Enforcement), Central Goods and Services Tax, Tripura, The Superintendent (Anti-Evasion), Tripura. - 2026 (7) TMI 223 - TRIPURA HIGH COURT] in unambiguous terms on 30/06/2026 ruled that the time lines for issuing SCN as well as for passing OIO under any section 73 or 74 or even 74A stands as the date originally applicable and any time extension for filing the annual return by way of notification is for enabling the taxpayers to file such omitted returns within such extended time and not for extension of statutory provisions as notifications are only sub-ordinate legislation for administering the Act passed by parliament and the basic provisions in the Act gets amended only by way of proper amendments to the relevant sections and not by mere issuance of notification. It is hoped that this view gets endorsed by the benches of the GSTAT in the coming days.

All the four developments shall definitely improve ease of doing business as the valuable time of entrepreneurs are saved by avoiding the avoidable litigation.

Part II. Request to GST Council for implementation from 01/04/2027.

1. Increase in threshold limits for GST registrations. Ideally, the current limits which were fixed several years ago may be doubled if possible and in case the Government has reservations, then may be increased by 50 % from the current levels. This shall work fine to improve tax collections as explained below. The GST officials practically deny 17 (5) (d) related ITC to 10,00,000 taxpayers to deny ITC of few crores whereas in case the focus shifts on online gaming entities, GST collections may improve by 20%. The GST officers are forced to monitor small value cases also which is totally against the principles of WIN - WIN.
2. In order to help the entire nation as each and every citizen who as on date do not own even one house has big dream of owing one, howsoever it may be possible and prepared to settle even at a small home, when it is the own home of that family. Keeping this in mind, clause d of sub section 5 of section 17 may be deleted with immediate effect as early as possible. This clause is giving less revenue to government and gives more burden to builders as well as genuine business executives as even ITC on cement, paint etc. used only in repair jobs also get blocked due to lack of awareness amongst officials at State.

These two suggestions, if approved by the GST Council shall reduce litigation in a significant manner with added tax collections to the Government.