NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday virtually ruled out exempting Covid vaccines, medicines and oxygen concentrators from GST, saying this will make the life-saving items costlier for consumers as manufacturers will not be able to offset the taxes paid on the inputs.
Currently, domestic supplies and commercial imports of vaccines attract a 5 per cent GST while Covid drugs and oxygen concentrators attract a 12 per cent levy. “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.