No GST on free food served at religious institutions

The government on Tuesday clarified that all free food supplied at religious institutions is exempt from the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

“There are media reports suggesting that GST applies on free food supplied in anna kshetras run by religious institutions,” the Ministry of Finance said in a statement. “This is completely untrue. No GST is applicable on such food supplied free.

“Further, prasadam supplied by religious places like temples, mosques, churches, gurudwaras, dargahs, etc attracts nil CGST and SGST or IGST, as the case may be.”

However, the government added that some of the inputs and input services-such as sugar, vegetable edible



oils, ghee, butter, and the service for transportation of these goods-required for making prasadam are subject to GST.

“Most of these inputs or input services have multiple uses. Under GST regime, it is difficult to prescribe a separate rate of tax for sugar, etc when supplied for a particular purpose.

“Further, GST being a multi-stage tax, end-use based exemptions or concessions are difficult to administer,” it added. “Therefore, GST does not envisage end-use based exemptions. It would, therefore, not be desirable to provide end-use based exemption for inputs or input services for making prasadam or food for free distribution by religious institutions.”