The GST is considered a simplified tax code. It will stop tax cascades and it is touted as minimising cost of compliance. It should also turn India into one single market. In practice, it will increase the pain of compliance, if not the cost, a lot. It also has clauses that offer scope to create a single market for corruption. Along the way, it will generate huge amounts of make-work.
Most countries with GST/VAT have a single or double rate of taxation (including 0 per cent). Some have complicated tax codes with four or more rates. Indonesia, for instance, has two
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