The Goods and Services Tax Council, during its 57th meeting on Thursday, approved sweeping and long-awaited reforms to input tax credit rules, significantly widening the range of corporate expenses eligible for credit while easing refund mechanisms for industrial and commercial enterprises. Under the newly endorsed guidelines, businesses can now claim input tax credit on employee health and life insurance policies, alongside major capital installations such as telecommunication towers and pipelines laid outside manufacturing facilities, providing substantial fiscal relief to core infrastructure and service-oriented sectors. Furthermore, the Council sanctioned credits on free product samples and expired inventory write-offs where statutory regulations mandate the physical destruction of goods, while simultaneously eliminating double taxation anomalies on intermediary services like hotel accommodations costing up to 7,500 rupees per night when booked via agents, restaurant and catering services, and passenger transport operations. To address persistent liquidity bottlenecks caused by inverted duty structures—where raw material inputs face higher tax rates than final finished products—the reform package permits manufacturers establishing new production lines to recover accumulated taxes on capital investments, plant, and machinery rather than leaving capital trapped indefinitely in credit pools, a shift expected to massively boost working capital efficiency across fast-moving consumer goods and pharmaceutical manufacturing. In a parallel administrative move, the Council announced the formation of a dedicated Committee of Officers tasked with formulating robust legal protections for bona fide buyers holding valid invoices who have fully paid suppliers, with findings due within three months. To help visualize these complex regulatory adjustments, the videos above offer helpful breakdowns of the 57th GST Council announcements. As corporate tax planners and compliance teams evaluate these structural shifts, these comprehensive policy modifications signal a progressive regulatory evolution aimed at strengthening business cash flows, reducing compliance friction, and optimizing the nation’s broader indirect tax framework.