Boost For Brand India

 A robust GST regime is sure to usher in business opportunities.

- Nishant Shah

The long-awaited and much-speculated date of implementation of GST has finally arrived. The 1st of July 2017 will usher in one of the biggest reforms in the history of India’s tax system.

The indirect tax regime in the country has been circumscribed by the rights and prerogatives granted to the central and state governments by the Constitution of India. The present system has therefore evolved in bits and pieces, resulting in multifarious legislations levying tax on varied events under each of these. This, in turn, has necessitated multiple compliance requirements and created tedious regulatory burden. The Indian indirect tax regime is perceived by the multinational corporates to be one of the most complex and dreaded tax regime in the world.

The introduction of GST marks the elimination of these multifarious taxes and a significant reduction in the compliance burden of businesses. The levy of GST subsumes within itself almost a dozen different taxes and duties presently applicable under different central and state legislations. A diagrammatic depiction is given in Exhibit 1.