Giving a much-needed relief to the restaurant owners and the outside eaters, the GST council has today announced that all the restaurant bills will now attract 5% GST. Earlier, the non AC restaurants used to levy 12% GST, whereas, restaurants with an AC in any part, were put under 18% tax slab. The restaurants located in 5-star hotels had 28% GST rate.
With the new announcement made by Arun Jaitley after concluding the 23rd meeting of GST council, the restaurant lobby has felt a big relief as the rate of food had drastically increased post the implementation of GST. However, the reduction has been announced with one condition, the merchants will not be able to claim input tax credit if they are charging 5% GST to the customers. Earlier, even the takeaways or home delivery orders from AC restaurants were charged at 18%.
Along with that, in terms of hotel tariffs, the hotels with rooms above INR 7500 per night will attract 18% GST with input tax credit.
The government has also announced making changes to the tax rates of over 200 items. Over 150 items, which were earlier placed in the highest tax slab, would now face lesser tax as only 50 items are now in the 28% tax slab.