New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that any reduction in the Goods and Services Tax will lead to an increase in the prices of important Covid essentials such as vaccines, drugs, oxygen concentrators, cylinders etc. In aserief of tweets yesterday Nirmala ruled out any exemptions in GST saying it will have a detrimental impact of prices of important life saving items. It will make the prices costlier for consumers as manufacturers will not be able to offset the taxes paid on the inputs.
Presently, domestic supplies and commercial imports of vaccines attract Five per cent GST while Covid drugs and oxygen concentrators have 12 per cent GST. “If full GST exemption is given, vaccine manufacturers will not be able to offset their input taxes and pass these on to the end consumer by increasing prices,” she tweeted.
The tweets by the Finance Minister came after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking exemption of GST customs duty any donations of oxygen concentrators, cylinders, cryogenic storage tanks and COVID related drugs from organisations or agencies.