ISAS Briefs

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) was on the anvil for many years in India. However, the present Central Government, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, finally persuaded all the constituent State governments in India to accept the introduction of the tax with effect from 1 July 2017. It must also be recognised, much to the credit of the Central Government, that the conceptualisation and the implementation of a very complicated tax structure have been smooth, without any glitches so far. It is now becoming clear that the initial fears of a decline in tax revenue mobilisation, especially for the States, are being set to rest. The first release of the early data pertaining to the GST collections appears to be very encouraging, indeed better than the expectations of the Central Government.