New Delhi, June 12 (KNN) In a boost for the MSME sector, the Goods & Services Tax (GST) Council on Sunday reduced tax rates of 66 items and also eased compliance burden for SMEs with annual turnover of Rs 75 lakhs.

The GST Council reworked the composition scheme for small businesses by allowing those with an annual turnover of Rs 75 lakh, instead of Rs 50 lakh earlier, to avoid any compliance burden and simply pay tax.

The GST Council, which met on Sunday, reduced the rates for nearly half the 133 items on which representations had been received, which included hybrid cars, sanitary napkins, telephone bills and ships manufactured in the country.

After the meeting, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, "The objective (of earlier rates) was to maintain equivalence to the existing taxes, and in some other cases the fitment had breached this equivalence principle. In others, the reduction is required because of the changing nature of the economy and changes that have occurred in consumer preference."

The Council over the last few weeks had decided the rates for 1,211 goods and around 500 services and had been flooded with requests for revision.

All goods and services have been put into four tax slabs of 5, 12, 18 and 28% in addition to several mass-consumption items that will attract zero tax.

Some of the changes in the tax rates were also necessitated by demands from states and industry.