Cleaning up taxes

Govt must seize opportunity to reform holes in tax system

In the run-up to the Union Budget, the finance ministry must be wrestling with assumptions about tax collection and other forms of revenue. The problem is not just that the pandemic and associated lockdowns will have wreaked havoc on tax collection but also that there are considerably more calls on its purse than in a normal year. The basic problem is that tax revenue was not robust even before the pandemic hit. The years since the introduction of goods and services tax (GST) have not been good for indirect tax revenue — it is fair to say that GST has