GST on fuel: A price vs revenue trade-off

The rise in global crude prices after August 2020 has led to a rapid rise in fuel prices across the country, which has sparked a demand for including petrol and diesel under GST. It is a huge misnomer that merely including these items under GST would lead to a lowering of pump prices since the maximum rate on these products would be capped at 28 per cent. While a decision to subsume petrol and die…