A delayed goods and service tax (GST) is better than a flawed one, our late finance minister Arun Jaitley once rightly said. But in reality, this was overlooked when GST was rolled out in India on July 1, 2017. Its Implementation has been easier said than done. GST completed its third year yesterday and enters the fourth year today. The journey has been a mixed bag, as several issues remain unresolved.
One of the main reasons for the introduction of GST was subsuming of various taxes into a single tax for ease of compliance. The Indian version of GST has three layers – Central GST, State GST and Integrated GST with multiple rates, which does not make it look simple. A GST model that keeps a balance between management and financial independence would be far better than the present multi-tier system.
In the fourth year of GST, key areas of emphasis will revolve around strengthening the IT infrastructure, rationalising multiple GST slabs and rates, easing the compliance burden, and reworking the compensation mechanism for states.
Well is quite natural for a pervasive, country like India, given the wide tax reform that GST is, to have a mixed opinion.
Listen to the podcast to know how GST impacted the Indian Economy negatively, how it has been beneficial for the economy? And What lies ahead?