Three years of GST: Still a long way to go for 'Good and Simple Tax'

The GST Council is considering market borrowing to give the states the promised compensation for their revenue shortfall

As the goods and services tax (GST) completes its third year on June 30, a host of issues, such as assessee-friendly compliance system and increase in tax collections, remains unresolved. To its credit, the tax has not turned out to be broadly inflationary. In its fourth year, information technology infrastructure needs to be strengthened, compliance eased, multiple GST slabs and rates rationalised, and the compensation mechanism for states reworked

At the launch of goods and services tax (GST) in 2017, then finance minister Arun Jaitley had hoped that the historic indirect tax reform would meet five broad objectives: Checking inflation,