New Delhi: Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman Replying to a debate on appropriation and finance bills in Rajya Sabha urged Members of Parliament of all parties to take the lead in exempting medical and life insurance from the Goods and Services Tax by asking their respective state finance ministers to take up the matter in the GST Council. She said that before the launch of the GST regime in 2017 every state levied tax on insurance premium. She added that the decision-making process of the apex federal body i..e GST Council is represented by finance ministers of states, who have two-third say in any matters while the Centre has one-third votes and hence if the state minister demand to waive off the GST on health and life insurance the Centre will have to follow as parliament cannot bypass the GST Council. She asked MPs to mobilise finance ministers of their respective states to take up the matter at the Council if they genuinely want to exempt GST on insurance premium and help the middle class. She said asking members to raise the issue in the right forum rather than politicising the issue. “Make sure, the next GST Council meeting takes this up,” she said asking MPs to persuade FMs of their respective states to act in the Council.
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Participating in the debate, TMC MP Derek O’Brien suggested that in the GST Council, if the majority vote was with NDA, then why not the levy has been reduced. To this, the minister said her endeavour was to take all decisions in the Council with consensus. Barring one issue (related to lottery), all decisions of GST Council were taken on the basis of consensus. Health and life insurance premiums attract 18% GST.
