GST 2.0: Tax-Free Essentials and Lower Rates on Processed Foods to Support Consumers and Small Enterprise:

GST 2.0: Tax-Free Essentials and Lower Rates on Processed Foods to Support Consumers and Small Enterprise The GST Council in its recent 56th meeting held on September 3, 2025 made the suggestions related to GST tax rates changes. This new changes gives relief to common man, aspirational middle class, individuals and measures for facilitation of trade in GST. Benefits of the GST rate rationalization:

• Simplified tax structure
• Correcting inverted duty structures promotes local manufacturing and improves export competitiveness
• Better revenue generation in the sector through broader base and better compliance.
• Resolving Classification Issues: Similar goods and services will be placed in the same rate slab, reducing disputes and lowering litigations costs.
• Reduced costs: Reduced prices for almost all food products, promoting ease of living. It will boost demand for food products, expansion of investment, employment generation.

Under 56th meeting of GST Council the council has reduced the GST structure to two main rates:

• 5% (merit rate) and
• 18% (standard rate)
• Along with a 40% special rate for luxury goods.

However earlier the GST structure was divided into four slabs- 5%, 12%, 18% and 28%. With the implementation of the new GST rates, the food-processing sector has seen significant gains, as a majority of products now attract only 5% GST. It provides economic growth through following:

• Reduced price
• Simplified tax structure
• Resolving Classification Issues
• Inverted duty structure
• Other procedural reforms
• Boost to processed food industry

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Following are the major processed food products on which GST rates have been reduced:

S No	Product Description	GST (%)
		From	To
1	Ultra-High Temperature (UHT) milk	5%	Nil
2	Condensed milk	12%	5%
3	Almonds	12%	5%
4	Malt, whether or not roasted	18%	5%
5	Sugar boiled confectionery	12%	5%
6	Sugar confectionery	18%	5%
7	Cocoa butter, fat and oil and Cocoa powder	18%	5%
8	Chocolates and other food preparations containing cocoa	18%	5%
9	Pasta, whether or not cooked or stuffed (with meat or other substances) or otherwise prepared, such as spaghetti, macaroni, noodles, lasagne, gnocchi, ravioli, cannelloni; couscous	12%	5%
10	Pastry, cakes, biscuits and other bakers’ wares, whether or not containing cocoa; communion wafers, empty cachets of a kind suitable for pharmaceutical use, sealing wafers, rice paper and similar products	18%	5%
11	Extruded or expanded products, savoury or salted	12%	5%
12	Vegetables, fruit, nuts and other edible parts of plants, prepared or preserved by vinegar or acetic acid	12%	5%
13	Jams, fruit jellies, marmalades, fruit or nut purée and fruit or nut pastes	12%	5%
14	Fruit or nut juices (including grape must) and vegetable juices	12%	5%
15	Soups and broths and preparations therefor; homogenized composite food preparations	18%	5%
16	Ice cream and other edible ice, whether or not containing cocoa	18%	5%
17	Namkeens, bhujia, mixture, chabena and similar edible preparations	12%	5%
18	Plant-based milk drinks, ready for direct consumption as beverages	18%	5%
19	Soya milk drinks	12%	5%
20	Fruit pulp or fruit juice based drinks (other than Carbonated Beverages of Fruit Drink or Carbonated Beverages with Fruit Juice)	12%	5%