The 57th Meeting of the Goods and Services Tax Council is scheduled to be held on Thursday, October 08, 2026, from 11:00 A.M. onwards at the Summit Room, Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi. The meeting was earlier fixed for September 12, 2026 and thereafter October 07, 2026, before being rescheduled for the second time. The latest schedule has been reported by A2Z Taxcorp on the basis of the Office Memorandum issued by the GST Council Secretariat. As on the meeting has not yet taken place and the formal agenda has not been placed in the public domain. Accordingly, the points discussed below are key expectations and reported proposals, and should not be treated as final recommendations of the GST Council.
The GST Council has deferred two key proposals related to input tax credit (ITC), according to reports from NDTV Profit. The Council deferred a proposal to amend Section 16(2) of the GST Act amid concerns over ensuring that sellers have actually paid tax to the government and the possibility of misuse through fake billing and fraudulent ITC claims. The proposal has now been referred to a Group of Ministers for further consideration. Additionally, the Council deferred the proposal to allow ITC claims on motor vehicles under Section 17(5), which would have widened the scope for businesses to claim credit on motor vehicles.
The GST Council also took up a proposal to reduce the GST rate on UPI Merchant Discount Rate from 18% to 5%, as reported by NDTV Profit. Most states raised concerns over the 18% GST on UPI MDR, particularly as the new MDR framework is set to introduce charges on specified higher-value merchant transactions. The proposal comes at a crucial time for India's digital payments ecosystem, with the new UPI framework providing for an MDR of 0.4% on specified person-to-merchant transactions above ₹2,000. Around 96% of person-to-merchant UPI transactions are expected to remain unaffected, according to the government. However, current reports indicate that the UPI MDR rate cut is not part of the formal agenda at present for the 57th GST Council Meeting.
The proposal to amend Section 16(2) of the GST Act was deferred due to concerns around fake invoices and wrongful ITC claims, according to NDTV Profit reports. Section 16(2) sets out conditions that taxpayers must meet to claim ITC, with one key condition being that tax charged on a supply should have actually been paid to the government. The proposed changes were aimed at addressing difficulties faced by genuine taxpayers when suppliers fail to deposit tax, but concerns around fraudulent claims have led the Council to seek detailed examination before approval. The 57th GST Council Meeting is expected to consider a significant reform to protect bona fide buyers from supplier-side tax default under Section 16(2)(c) of the CGST Act. The government's ability to match invoice-level data is cited as a reason why enforcement can now be targeted closer to the source of the mismatch instead of automatically shifting the burden to the recipient.
The 57th GST Council Meeting could become one of the most important GST meetings since the major rate rationalisation of 2025, even if it makes comparatively few changes to headline tax rates. The reform theme is increasingly being described as the "process" phase of GST 2.0, with the Council likely to concentrate on registration, returns, refunds, input tax credit, export treatment, enforcement, litigation management and technology-driven administration. Major relief for small e-commerce sellers through easier multi-State registration is expected, with the reported proposal allowing eligible small sellers to use the e-commerce platform's warehouse as their registered place of business in a State where the seller does not maintain its own premises. Refund processing may be transformed through a 10-day acknowledgement and 90% risk-based release, with the objective to bring the effective refund cycle closer to about 17 days for low-risk claims. Faster GST registration with more automatic approvals is anticipated, with reports indicating that approximately 61% of registrations are presently granted automatically within three working days, and the policy objective is to expand this automated route to substantially all eligible and low-risk applications.
The 57th GST Council Meeting is expected to take significant steps towards reducing low-value litigation by prescribing a minimum monetary threshold for issuance of GST demand notices. No show-cause notice may be issued where the amount involved is below ₹10,000, and the relief could potentially extend to specified pending matters at the adjudication or appellate stage. For amounts above the threshold, tax officers may be required to first issue an intimation and give the taxpayer an opportunity to explain the difference before a formal show-cause notice is issued. Decriminalisation is likely to be among the most debated items, with the Centre reportedly favouring a trust-based framework under which GST officers would no longer make pre-prosecution arrests in routine cases. The monetary threshold for prosecution is proposed to be raised from ₹1 crore to ₹5 crore, with several offences being removed from the prosecution provisions while routine classification, valuation or ITC disputes would be kept outside the criminal net unless accompanied by evidence of fraud or deliberate evasion.
