Section 10 of the GST (Compensation to States) Act, 2017

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GST›GST (Compensation to States) Act, 2017

At a glance

Bars, duties and time limits

  • 10(1)Cess proceeds under section 8 and other Council-recommended amounts must be credited to the non-lapsable Goods and Services Tax Compensation Fund, which forms part of India’s public account and is used for the section 8 purposes.
  • 10(3A) provisoFor a Fund shortfall against compensation for any two months, fifty per cent, not exceeding total prior Council-recommended transfers to the Centre and States, is recovered from the Centre; the balance fifty per cent is recovered from States in their section 5 base-year revenue ratio.
  • 10(4)The Comptroller and Auditor-General of India, or an appointee, must audit Fund accounts at intervals specified by him; the Central Government must pay the audit expenditure to him.
  • 10(5)Certified Fund accounts and the audit report must be laid before each House of Parliament.

Procedure, powers and definitions

  • 10(2)All amounts payable to States under section 7 must be paid from the Fund.
  • 10(3)At the transition period’s end, fifty per cent of the unutilised Fund balance goes to the Consolidated Fund of India; the other fifty per cent goes to States in the ratio of their State tax or Union territory goods and services tax revenues in the last transition year.
  • 10(3A)Despite sub-section (3), fifty per cent of a Council-recommended unutilised amount during any financial year in the transition period goes to the Consolidated Fund of India; the balance goes to States in the ratio of their section 5 base-year revenue.
  • 10(3A) provisoThe law does not settle how the recovery ceiling applies where half the shortfall or the whole shortfall exceeds total prior Council-recommended transfers.

Cess proceeds and other Council-recommended amounts enter the non-lapsable Goods and Services Tax Compensation Fund, from which compensation to States is paid. End-transition distribution uses last-year tax revenues. Sub-section (3A) overrides that arrangement for interim distributions and uses base-year revenue for States’ shares and recovery. Inserted from 1 February 2019, it also provides for recovery after a compensation shortfall. Audit and Parliamentary presentation remain mandatory.[1]

Text

The text below is the section as served by the CBIC tax information portal on 17 September 2026, with the portal's own amendment footnote markers (shown as small numerals before a bracket) and its footnotes.[1] The Act as published in the Gazette of India is the legal source.

Section 10, verbatim (show)

Section 10. Crediting proceeds of cess to Fund.

(1) The proceeds of the cess leviable under section 8 and such other amounts as may be recommended by the Council, shall be credited to a non-lapsable Fund known as the Goods and Services Tax Compensation Fund, which shall form part of the public account of India and shall be utilised for purposes specified in the said section.

(2) All amounts payable to the States under section 7 shall be paid out of the Fund.

(3) Fifty per cent. of the amount remaining unutilised in the Fund at the end of the transition period shall be transferred to the Consolidated Fund of India as the share of Centre, and the balance fifty per cent. shall be distributed amongst the States in the ratio of their total revenues from the State tax or the Union territory goods and services tax, as the case may be, in the last year of the transition period.

1[(3A) Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (3), fifty per cent. of such amount, as may be recommended by the Council, which remains unutilised in the Fund, at any point of time in any financial year during the transition period shall be transferred to the Consolidated Fund of India as the share of Centre, and the balance fifty per cent. shall be distributed amongst the States in the ratio of their base year revenue determined in accordance with the provisions of section 5:

Provided that in case of shortfall in the amount collected in the Fund against the requirement of compensation to be released under section 7 for any two months' period, fifty per cent. of the same, but not exceeding the total amount transferred to the Centre and the States as recommended by the Council, shall be recovered from the Centre and the balance fifty per cent. from the States in the ratio of their base year revenue determined in accordance with the provisions of section 5.]

(4) The accounts relating to Fund shall be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India or any person appointed by him at such intervals as may be specified by him and any expenditure in connection with such audit shall be payable by the Central Government to the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India.

(5) The accounts of the Fund, as certified by the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India or any other person appointed by him in this behalf together with the audit report thereon shall be laid before each House of Parliament.

1. Inserted (w.e.f. 01.02.2019) by s.3 of the Goods and Services Tax (Compensation to States) Amendment Act, 2018 (34 of 2018).

Questions to answer on the file

Questions a reviewer answers from the engagement file, grouped by the part of the section they come from. They describe what the section asks; they do not decide it.

Amounts credited to statutory Fund 10(1)

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Compensation paid from Fund 10(2)

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Terminal distribution source 10(3)

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Terminal Centre half 10(3)

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Terminal State proportional half 10(3)

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Terminal actual transfer destinations 10(3)

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Interim distribution source 10(3A)

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Interim Centre half 10(3A)

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Interim State proportional half 10(3A)

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Interim actual transfer destinations 10(3A)

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Two-month Fund shortfall 10(3A) proviso

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Recovery cap and allocation interaction 10(3A) proviso

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Uncapped Centre recovery half measure 10(3A) proviso

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State recovery half by base-year ratio 10(3A) proviso

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Fund audit identity and intervals 10(4)

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Fund audit expenditure payer and payee 10(4)

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Certified Fund accounts and report laying 10(5)

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Amendment history

The CBIC text carries 1 footnote. The table gives each in the source's own terms. Effective dates are as the footnotes state them.[1]

Amendments to section 10 as footnoted in the CBIC text
NoteChange
1Inserted (w.e.f. 01.02.2019) by s.3 of the Goods and Services Tax (Compensation to States) Amendment Act, 2018 (34 of 2018).[2]
Provisions connected to Section 10
ProvisionConnectionWords that tie them
Section 7this provision requires Section 7amounts payable to the States under section 7
Section 8this provision requires Section 8proceeds of the cess leviable under section 8
Section 5this provision requires Section 5base year revenue determined in accordance with the provisions of section 5

Circulars and notifications

Circulars and notifications in the CBIC repository that cite this section, newest first, by number, date and subject. A listing here does not say what an instrument decides; read the instrument.

Notifications (1)

NumberDateSubject
Notification No. 01/2018-Compensation Cess14 November 2018Notification No. 1/2018 dated 14.11.2018 which notifies the list of Acts of Central Government and State Governments under which specified taxes are being subsumed into the Goods and Services Tax.

Unsettled questions

The words of section 10 do not answer this question. Where one decides a matter on the file, the answer depends on the position taken on it.

  1. How does the proviso limit Centre and State recovery when half the shortfall or the entire shortfall exceeds the total prior transfers recommended by the Council?

See also

References

  1. Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs. "Section 10. Crediting proceeds of cess to Fund". Goods and Services Tax (Compensation to States) Act, 2017, CBIC tax information portal, with amendment footnotes 1 to 1. Retrieved 17 September 2026.
  2. The Goods and Services Tax (Compensation to States) Amendment Act, 2018. Cited in CBIC footnote 1.

External links