GST Reforms Underway: Towards Consistency, Fairness, and Ease of Compliance

The Government of India is working hard towards simplifying the Goods and Services Tax (GST) system. GST simplification does not only mean changing the rates of tax; it can also involve reducing the number of tax slabs, aligning rates more logically, and making compliance easier for businesses.

One of the significant ideas being looked at is adopting global best practices, which means learning from how other countries have structured their GST or VAT systems and seeing what can be applied in India to make things smoother and more efficient.

A Group of Ministers (GoM) has already spent time discussing these amendments. Along with this, from the time the Union Budget was presented till today, the Finance Minister has said that she has scheduled several meetings with the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) and other GST officials. These meetings were focused towards these points:

Reviewing Present GST Rates

• Several goods that fall under the same or similar categories are taxed at distinct rates for no strong reason, which leads to confusion and unfairness. The team is reviewing these cases to bring more consistency.

Correcting Inverted Duty Structures

• This is when the tax rate on the input product (raw materials) is more than the tax rate on the final product (after adding factors of production). This situation leads manufacturers to pay more tax at the time of buying materials than they can recover from selling their goods. This is a major issue in several sectors and causes problems for businesses. The government is deeply looking for ways to fix these irregularities.

Overall System Improvement

• This was not at all a minor task. The officials have put in a lot of time to study the structure of GST in depth, understand the root causes of existing issues, and find practical solutions.

The government is soon aiming to finish this reform process so that the GST system becomes more logical, fair, and easier to comply with. This will not only result in reducing the compliance burden for businesses but may also lead to reduced tax rates in some cases, benefiting consumers as well.