New Delhi, Dec 25 (IANS): The Finance Ministry on Wednesday notified setting up of a GST grievance redress committee at zonal/state level after it was approved in the last GST Council meeting this month.

The Council in its 38th meeting held on December 18 decided that a structured mechanism be set up for the taxpayers under GST to tackle grievances of taxpayers on GST-related issues of specific/general nature, Commissioner of AGST Policy wing of the Finance Ministry in a letter to all Chief Commissioners of Central Tax & GST and all Chief Commissioners/Commissioners of State Tax said on Wednesday.

The Council has approved constitution of 'Grievance Redressal Committee (GRC)' at Zonal/StateAlevel consisting of both Central Tax and State Tax officers, representatives of trade and industry and other GST stakeholders.

The Committee will examine and resolve all issues being faced by the taxpayers, including procedural difficulties and IT-related issues pertaining to GST.

It also can refer any issue requiring a change in Act/rules/notification/ form/circular/instruction to the GST Council Secretariat and the relevant Policy Wing of the CBIC (Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Custom). IT-related issues will be referred to GSTN.

Whenever a GST policy related issue is referred by a GRC, the Policy Wing of CBIC would examine the said policy issue, and if required, would make suitable recommendations to process it for placing it before the GST Council for its consideration.

In case, where there are more than one state corresponding to a single Central Tax Zone, the Grievance Redressal Committee will be constituted at state level for each State. Where there are more than one Central Tax Zones in a state, the committee would be constituted at the zonal level.

Each zonal/state level redressal Committee will comprise zonal principal chief commissioner/chief commissioner of Central tax (Co-chair) , chief commissioner/commissioner of state tax (co-chair), representatives of various trade associations (up to 12).

Representatives of prominent associations of tax professionals such as chartered accountants, tax advocates, tax practitioners (up to 4 in number), nodal officer of ITGRC of the Central Tax and Nodal officer of ITGRC of the state tax will also be part of it.