Indirect tax reforms: A job half done; GST underperforms for its faulty design, rate hike agenda regressive

As India’s goods and services tax (GST) completes five years on June 30, it has, at best, just begun to exhibit flashes of innate brilliance. Revenues have been very buoyant in recent months, so the Centre now expects receipts from this main indirect tax in the current financial year to be a fifth higher than the Budget Estimate (BE) announced in February. In the last financial year, the collectio…