Under the recommended refund reforms, within how many days must a refund claim be acknowledged?

The correct answer is the 57th meeting. The backgrounder states that the process reforms covering registration, return filing, refunds, input tax credit and dispute resolution were recommended at the 57th meeting of the GST Council, held in October 2026. Option B, the 56th meeting, is wrong because that meeting dealt with rates rather than process: it replaced the earlier four-tier structure with two main rates of 5 and 18 per cent, keeping a special 40 per cent rate for a select list of goods and services. Option A, the 55th meeting, is wrong because the paper nowhere credits it with these recommendations. Option D, the 58th meeting, is wrong because it had not been held when the paper was issued on 9 October 2026. A useful way to remember the pair is that the 56th Council simplified rates and the 57th Council simplified procedure.

The correct answer is 1.70 crore. The backgrounder records that the taxpayer base widened from roughly 60 lakh when the tax began to about 1.70 crore in September 2026, which is close to a threefold increase over nine years. Option A, 60 lakh, is wrong because that was the count in 2017, the year GST was introduced, and not the current figure. Options B and D, 1.20 crore and 2.50 crore, are wrong because neither number appears anywhere in the paper; they are plausible-looking values placed to test whether a candidate recalls the exact total. Two companion figures are worth memorising with it: the network had handled 3,053 crore invoice uploads and 833.82 crore e-way bills as on 30 September 2026, and gross collections for April to September 2026 were close to ₹12.46 lakh crore.

The correct answer is ₹5 crore. To build a trust-based tax system while keeping a deterrent against fraud, the Council recommended lifting the prosecution threshold from ₹1 crore to ₹5 crore and withdrawing certain powers of arrest under GST. Option A, ₹1 crore, is wrong because that is the old threshold being raised, not the new one. Options B and D, ₹2 crore and ₹10 crore, are wrong because neither figure is mentioned in the recommendations. Related numbers from the same set are worth learning together: no show cause notice will be issued where the tax involved is below ₹10,000, the maximum general penalty falls from ₹25,000 to ₹10,000, the minimum penalty of ₹10,000 goes in non-fraud cases, and a reduced penalty of 5 per cent applies when tax and interest are paid within the time allowed after the adjudication order.

The correct answer is the National Statistics Office, which functions under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. It prepared and released the draft guideline for compiling Gross State Domestic Product estimates from the expenditure side and placed the document on the ministry website for wider dissemination and feedback. Option A is wrong because NITI Aayog is the government’s policy think tank and does not compile national accounts. Option C is wrong because the Reserve Bank of India is the central bank and monetary authority, though it publishes State finance studies of its own. Option D is wrong because the Finance Commission recommends the sharing of taxes between the Union and the States. The actual compilation work under the new guideline will be done by the State Directorates of Economics and Statistics.

The correct answer is Private Final Consumption Expenditure, usually shortened to PFCE. The release states plainly that while some States and Union Territories do put together estimates of Gross Fixed Capital Formation and Government Final Consumption Expenditure, no State or Union Territory is compiling PFCE at present. That is why options A and B are wrong. Option D is wrong because net exports is listed as one of the components the framework covers, not as the component singled out as missing everywhere. The draft guideline therefore supplies the concepts, coverage, data sources and estimation methods needed to build these components at the State level, and recommends allocation methods and indicators wherever direct State-level data are not available. Remember also that the draft guideline works with 2022-23 as the base year and that stakeholders were asked to send their comments by 28 October 2026 through the official website of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, while the compilation itself will rest with the State Directorates of Economics and Statistics.