International Journal of Commerce and Management Research

Authors
Dr. R Jayanthi

Abstract
According to Kautilya in his book ‘Arathshashtra’ the tax system of a country should be “liberal in assessment and ruthless in collection”. To implement such feeling we need more tax reforms in our country. The main objective of Tax reforms is to establish a tax system that is economically efficient and neutral in its application, distribution ally attractive, and simple to administer. Neutral in application means tax should be a uniform percentage of the final retail price of a product, regardless of the supply-chain arrangements for its manufacturing and distribution. One of the major step on this tax reform is introduction of Goods and Services tax. The GST (Goods and Services Tax) is a proposed system of nationwide VAT which will be uniform for goods and services transactions in India. The VAT is a type of consumption tax that is placed on a product whenever value is added at a stage of production and at final sale. It is levied at each stage of chain including production and distribution from raw materials to the final sale of finished product based on the value added at each stage. In this system the full brunt is borne by the end consumer. As per the decisions made by all will of GST Council, the tax rates would be at 4 slabs of 5%, 12%, 18% and 28%. Luxury and demerit goods will be taxed at 28% plus cess. The main purpose of this paper is to study and analyze about Goods and Services Tax in India that is going to be implemented with effect from 1^st July 2017. This paper focuses on why does India Need GST? How is the GST different from current system? GST’s merit and demerit. Goods and Services Tax (GST) is a proposed system of indirect taxation in India merging most of the existing taxes into single system of taxation. Data has been collected from multiple sources of evidence, in addition to books, journals, websites, and newspapers. It explores the main issues, the introduction of Goods and Services Tax (GST) would be a significant step in the reform of indirect taxation in India. “GST is a great step by Team India, great step towards transformation, great steps towards transparency”. - Prime Minister of India Shri. Narendra Modi. “Consumer is the King; we intend to bring uniformity in taxes”. - Prime Minister of India Shri. Narendra Modi.