Finance Minister introduces GST Bill to raise age limit of President and Members of Appellate Tribunals [Read Bill]

The Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman introduced a bill in the Lok Sabha to raise the age limit for president and members of GST appellate tribunals on Wednesday.

The Central Goods and Services Tax (Second Amendment) Bill, 2023 aims to raise the previous age limits of 67 and 65 years to 70 years for the president and members of the GST appellate tribunals (GSTAT).

A candidate for judicial appointment to the GSTAT would be an advocate with ten years of “substantial experience” in Appellate Tribunal cases involving indirect taxes.

The amendment states that the president and the judicial and technical members of the GSTAT will serve for four years, or until the president reaches the age of seventy-seven or sixty-seven, whichever comes first.

The government had already announced guidelines that set the age restriction at 67 years for the president and 65 years for members of GSTAT.

The age criteria adjustment was accepted in October by the GST Council, which was presided over by Sitharaman and included the finance ministers of all states and Union territories.

The updated measure would allow the president and members of the GSTAT to be reappointed for a two-year term, subject to a ceiling of 70 and 67 years old, respectively.

In order to facilitate the establishment of the Central Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunals, Parliament approved revisions to the GST Act in March. On July 31, GSTAT was notified as a result.

It was discovered that several of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017’s provisions needed to be in line with the Tribunal Reforms Act, 2021, during the operationalization process of the aforementioned Tribunal.

The statement of objects and reasons of the bill introduced by Sitharaman in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday stated, “Accordingly, the provisions of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 are being aligned with the Tribunal Reforms Act, 2021, to initiate the administrative process for operationalization of the Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunals at the earliest.”

The measure stated that an individual who has not reached the age of fifty will not be qualified to serve as president or member.

According to a finance ministry official last week, it will take roughly four to five months to operationalize GSTATs. In the meanwhile, efforts are being made to identify infrastructure, after which the member selection process will begin.

The 31 benches of the GST Appellate Tribunal (GSTAT), which will be established in 28 states and 8 UTs, were informed by the Finance Ministry in September.

Establishing GSTAT benches at the state level would benefit companies by facilitating quicker dispute resolution.

Currently, taxpayers who are dissatisfied with a tax authority’s decision must file a case with the relevant High Court. Because High Courts do not have a dedicated bench to handle GST disputes and are already overburdened with a backlog of cases, the resolution process takes longer.

The announcement states that Goa and Maharashtra together would have three benches of the GSTAT, while Gujarat and the UTs—Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu—shall have two benches each.

Uttar Pradesh will have three benches, while Rajasthan and Karnataka will each have two.

There will be two GSTAT benches shared by West Bengal, Sikkim, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry, and one bench each for Kerala and Lakshadweep.

There will be one bench among the seven northeastern states: Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Tripura.

Every other state will have a single GSTAT bench.

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