Fact Check: No, the government has not imposed GST on funeral services

New Delhi, July 23: You cannot die without paying GST of 18 per cent reads a viral message on the social media. The tweet which has gone viral has a photo of Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman. It also lists many goods and services and the taxes levied on them.

OneIndia has learnt that this claim is fake. We dug out a press release that was shared with us with the list of items GST has been levied on. The release speaks about the recommendations of the 47th GST Council meeting.

During the meeting held in Chandigarh in June 2022 the council approved 18 per cent GST on works contract for roads, bridges, railways, metro, effluent treatment plant, crematorium etc.

The revision was done to correct the inverted duty structure as inputs such as cements, steel etc attract GST at the rate of 28 percent/18 per cent. This was done on the recommendations of the group of ministers.

Under activities or transactions which shall be treated neither as supply of goods nor supply of services, item 4 speaks about the services of funeral, burial, crematorium or mortuary including transportation of the deceased.

This viral tweet was also debunked by the PIB Fact Check. It said that there is no GST on funeral, burial, crematorium or mortuary services. In this reference GST at 18 per cent is only applicable for work contracts and not the services.

Hence we can conclude that the claim is false. The levy of 18 per cent GST is not meant for crematorium services but for work contracts inside crematoriums.