Brief History of GST

GST complete form is the Goods and services tax in India. It is an indirect tax levied on the polity's supply or trade of goods and services. If you want to know about the brief history of GST in India, genesis of GST in India and how and when GST has come into force, so see below.

GST History in India Brief

The Central Government in 2003 created a Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management taskforce that suggested replacing the old indirect tax regime with the GST on the supply of all goods and services in 2004.

Union Finance Minister in his 2006-07 Budget speech articulated the movement towards the GST. Originally, it was decided to introduce GST from 1st April 2010. Next will know when was GST first introduced in India .

Then after all the discussion on GST first introduced in India, the central government proposed GST W.E.F from 1st July 2017 and that's called the origin of GST in India. 1st July 2017 is the date when GST introduced in India and on this day GST started in India.

Let us understand the historical background of GST in India in brief using the image:

Indirect Taxes Subsumed by GST

GST replaced all the multiple flowing taxes that are levied by the central and state Government. It came into existence from July 1 2017. It is one indirect tax for the entire country.

GST has subsumed the number of indirect taxes such as:

Central Taxes

1. Central excise duty
2. Other Additional Excise Duty
3. Excise duty under medicinal and toilet preparation act
4. CVD and special CVD
5. Central Sales Tax
6. Central Surcharge and CESS on the supply of goods and services

State Taxes

1. Service tax
2. Value Added Tax
3. Central Sales Tax
4. OCTROI
5. Entertainment taxexcept those levied by local bodies
6. Entry tax
7. Purchase tax
8. Luxury tax
9. Advertisement tax
10. Taxes applicable on lotteries, gambling and betting
11. State Surcharge and CESS on the supply of goods and services

Principles of GST

GST is based on 'The destination Principle' and 'Value Added Principle.

'Destination Principle' states that the supply of goods and services be taxed at the moment of consumption. GST substitutes a source-based tax system with a destination-based tax regime.

On the other hand, the 'Value Added Principle' underlines the tax collected on value-added goods or services at each stage of the supply chain. GST is collected on value-added at every step of the supply chain from the original producer or service provider to the ultimate consumer.

Salient Features of GST

It provides numerous benefits to the Government, consumer as well as for the business class as it is one indirect tax which provides easy administration to the Government. It provides relief in overall tax burden. The luxury items are taxed more and the basic goods are tax-free for the consumers. It helps the businesses in easy tax compliance and better decision making and investments are done by the corporate.

As it is mentioned above that GST stands for one tax payment from consumer end as the payment is made to the last supplier of the chain. Though it has been attained that this tax is the most benefiting tax introduced till now after the independence at it is for the people and one can enjoy the cancellation on all the indirect taxes on goods and services organized or imposed by the central and state government.

Before understanding the functioning of GST it is important to understand the deep analysis that how the indirect taxes worked before the implementation of GST.

The constitutional law of Indian democratic divided all the indirect taxes in-between state and central government itself. The only issue with those indirect taxes was that one has to pay tax on tax which is now has been suspended after GST has been implemented. Some of the important GST benefits are:

• Creation of unified market

With the introduction of GST in India, the government is trying to make India a common market with common tax rates and procedure.

• Removal of cascading effect

GST has successfully removed the cascading effect by subsuming all the indirect taxes and allowing set-off across the entire value-chain.

• Multiple taxes elimination

GST has even helped in eliminating the majority of Indirect taxes by subsuming them.

• Boost to Make In India Initiative

GST has even helped in boosting the make in India initiative by making goods and services competitive in both national and international market.