Goods and Services Tax (GST) completes 7 year | Current Affairs | Vision IAS
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Goods and Services Tax (GST) completes 7 year

Posted 02 Jul 2024

2 min read

101st Constitutional Amendment Act introduced the GST in 2017. 

  • GST is a comprehensive indirect tax levied on the supply of goods and services.
    •  It is a value-added tax (VAT). 

Key Features of GST

  • One Nation, One Tax:  Replaced multiple indirect taxes levied by the Central and State Governments, such as excise duty, service tax, etc. 
  • Dual Structure:  Comprises of the Central GST (CGST) and the State GST (SGST)
    • In the case of Inter-state transactions, Integrated GST (IGST) is applicable, which is collected by the Central Government and apportioned to the respective State. 
  • Destination-based Tax: GST is a destination-based tax, levied at each stage of the supply chain.
  • Tax Slabs: 0%, 5%, 12%, 18%, and 28%.
  • Governance: GST Council is key decision making body.
    • Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) provides IT system of the GST portal. 

Key Achievements

  • Rise in number of GST taxpayers (grew from 1.05 crore (April 2018) to 1.46 crore (April 2024))
  • Eliminated the cascading effect of taxes.
  • Reduced compliance burden for small taxpayers (e.g composition scheme). 
  • Increased intrastate and interstate transactions by electronic way (e-way) bills

Key Challenges/Concern and Potential Solutions 

Challenges/Concern 

  • Multiplicity of Tax Slabs and various products are still outside purview of GST (e.g liquor) 
  • State’s power of taxation has reduced
  • Shortfall in revenue collection of states is not compensated timely.

Potential Solutions

  • Rationalizing Tax Structure, reducing the number of Tax Slabs
  • Revenue loss of states should be compensated on time 
  • Early operationalising  all the benches of the GST Appellate Tribunal (GSTAT)
  • Tags :
  • GST
  • One Nation, One Tax
  • 101st Constitutional Amendment Act
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