Taxing pizzas, ice cream or vehicles: GST is neither good nor simple

Separate state-wise Appellate Authority for Advance Ruling don't serve a useful purpose: there is a need for a national one.

It can happen only in India that a pizza is taxed at three different rates and where a pizza topping is different from a pizza, as decreed two days ago by the Haryana authority for advance rulings. The results are ridiculous. 

Thus pizza sold in a restaurant attracts 5% GST, whereas a pizza delivered at home attracts 18% GST. A pizza base bought separately attracts 12% GST.

And therein lies a much larger problem: the waywardness of the various authorities. They are screwing things up as only Indian bureaucrats can. 

Advance ruling was a mechanism devised, according to the CBIC