Goods and Services Travel

The hot season is upon us, the time when politicians and bureaucrats start heading overseas. Usually these trips are made on the flimsiest of pretexts, but with sharp cutbacks in expenditure, the reasons for overseas travel have to be more robust. And what better reason than to study the complex and politically sensitive Goods and Services Tax (GST)? Indeed, the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers has visited several countries in the last few years to study their GST models. After travelling to Canada, Europe, Japan, the UK, Australia and New Zealand in the past, a state finance minister suggested a trip to the US this year. When told that there is no GST in the US, his response was: "Even better. If such a large country can do without GST, we must go and see."