GST - India's Biggest Taxation Reform

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While Congress built flaky castles in the air by sitting on the Kelkar committee recommendations for 10 years, kudos to Modi govt, for making GST a reality on 1st July 2017.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Independence Day promise, last week, of cheaper daily-use items through a simplified two-slab Goods & Services Tax (GST) structure, as part of 'next-generation reforms" and a Diwali gift for the nation, has triggered sharp political reactions from the Congress Party and Rahul Gandhi, who now wish to claim credit for GST being 'their idea". What is the truth? The simple truth is this — GST was dubbed as the 'Gabbar Singh Tax" by Rahul Gandhi, mocking at what has inarguably been India's greatest indirect tax reform by the Modi government.
Rahul Gandhi and his coterie of sycophants can keep vacillating between false bravado and sheer desperation at what they could have done with GST. But finally, an idea is only as good as its implementation. So while the Congress built flaky castles in the air by sitting on the Kelkar committee recommendations for ten long years, kudos to the Modi government, for eventually making GST a reality on 1st July 2017. In fact, it is time for the Congress to stop playing the 'martyr' and churlishly blaming the BJP for 'snatching' their idea, which never was their idea in any case, to start with. In a democracy, an idea is worth its weight in gold only if executed effectively. And clearly, despite multiple hurdles, thanks to Prime Minister Modi's courage of conviction, GST became a reality.
It has been widely reported that the Modi government is mulling two main slabs, 5 per cent for common-use items and 18 per cent for most other goods, in a bid to make life simpler and less taxing for citizens and businesses. A higher 40 per cent levy on sin goods like cigarettes for instance, is likely. Notably, July 2025 marked the 8th anniversary of GST, famously called 'One Nation One Tax", which makes India a unified, common market. It is a single, destination based, multi-stage tax on the supply of goods and services, right from the manufacturing to the consumption stage. Credits of input taxes paid at each stage are available in the subsequent stage of value addition, which makes the GST, essentially a tax only on value addition at each stage. It is indeed the Input Tax Credit (ITC), besides a whole host of other progressive moves, which make the GST, as we know it in India, superior to any other consumption-based or Value Added Tax in any other country in the world.
GST collections during the month of July 2025 came in at Rs 1.96 lakh crore (7.5 per cent growth year-on-year), after hitting a peak of Rs 2.37 lakh crore in April 2025. Clearly, GST has been a mega reform showcasing how Modinomics has combined grand vision with seamless execution. The average monthly GST revenue has been Rs 1.84 lakh crore in FY25, versus Rs 1.68 lakh crore in FY24 and Rs 1.51 lakh crore in FY23.
GST was implemented in France for the first time in 1954 with the standard rate largely being 20 per cent. It came into being in New Zealand in 1986 at 10 per cent, before moving to 15 per cent. GST was initiated in Singapore at 3 per cent in 1994 and then went up to 7 per cent. The indirect tax rate in Indonesia is largely between 10 per cent and 35 per cent while in Brazil, though the average tax rate for food products is 7 per cent, the average VAT for most other items is between 17-20 per cent, with an additional cess on inter-State supplies at between 4-25 per cent. There are some items that also attract a ridiculous rate of as high as 330 per cent, which is a federal tax levied on most domestic and imported manufactured products. In China, there are three indirect tax rates, zero, 5 per cent and 19 per cent, but with very few items that are 'recoverable' or that enjoy the benefit of input tax credit. What the aforesaid taxation data highlights is, there is no single GST rate. Hence, allegations that India's GST is a multi-tier one and therefore inefficient, are absolutely uncalled for. It needs to be understood that one shoe cannot fit every size and GST in India was likewise, tweaked to suit India's evolving consumer base.
The Indian variation of GST is unique due to the sheer array of numbers involving a country of over 1.42 billion people. In fact, when GST was introduced in July 2017, the idea was to have a revenue neutral rate (RNR) of 15.5 per cent 2-3 years hence. But the RNR is merely 11.4 per cent today. Today less than 28 items attract a tax rate of 28 per cent and these are largely Sin goods like tobacco, aerated drinks,high end sedans, etc. GST is largely pro-poor and pro-middle class. GST for all religious tours has been fixed at 5 per cent. The GST for air travel in economy class is 5 per cent and GST for business class air travel, is 12 per cent. GST for movie tickets costing upto Rs 100 was brought down from 18 per cent to 12 per cent and for those priced above Rs 100, from 28 per cent to 18 per cent. GST on sanitary pads is down from 13.5 per cent earlier, to zero, now. Interestingly, of the 160 odd countries that have adopted GST, only 49 follow one tax slab module, 28 countries have two slab tax modules and all others have modified the GST structure to align it to country specific needs, which essentially means there is no 'one size fits all" approach.
An e-Way Bill which is an electronic permit for shipping goods, similar to a Waybill, is now mandatory for inter-state transport of goods effective from 1st April 2018, under the GST regime. It is required to be generated for every interstate and intrastate movement of goods beyond 10 kilometres with a value of more than Rs 50,000. It is a paperless technology solution and critical anti-evasion tool to check tax leakages. Along with GST, the e-Way bill, with RFID tags for motor vehicles which are captured at toll plazas by sensors, have been gigantic steps in the right direction in improving tax compliance. The record breaking 131.9 million e-Way bills generated in July 2025 represent a significant signal of formal economic activity, driven by a combination of pre-festive demand, consistent compliance enforcement under GST, resilient supply chains, expansion in logistics and robust consumption cycles in rural India. HSBC Manufacturing PMI index this year climbed from 58.4 in June to 59.1 in July, signalling strong improvement in new factory orders.
Coming back to GST, the Modi government reduced GST on under-construction houses from 12 per cent to 5 per cent, and in the 'affordable housing' segment, it was reduced from 8 per cent to a mere 1 per cent, once again endorsing a pro-people approach. Among other things, India's fuel economy, post-GST, is more competitive by eliminating the need for truckers to wait endlessly to pay octroi and entry taxes at inter-state checkposts. Among other concessions, services rendered to all Jan Dhan accounts are now completely tax-exempt, showcasing that the Modi government's clarion call of 'Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas" is not a mere platitude, but a work ethic that it truly abides by.
To curb corruption, tax leakages and frauds using fake invoices, the Modi government brought in E-Invoicing in 2020, for those with more than 500 crore turnover. That limit now extends to those with Rs 5 crore turnover. From about 495 forms that needed to be filed in the pre-GST era, that number in the post GST era, is down to just a handful of 12 odd forms.The GST structure chooses to tax demerit goods at the highest rate to disincentivise 'sin goods", while keeping tax rates for items of mass consumption at zero or 5 per cent. The GST model, under the Modi government, strikes just the right balance between the tax base and tax rates, thereby preventing the tax structure from becoming regressive. The voting structure of the GST Council is such that,States together have a 2/3rd weightage of the vote. The Centre has a 1/3rd weightage of the vote. In other words, the overwhelming majority of decisions taken by the GST Council have been through unanimous consensus of both the States and the Centre. So for the Opposition to cry foul, is meaningless.
The best thing about GST is that there are no hidden taxes and what you see is what you get. Efficiency gains, higher compliance, prevention of tax leakages, lower rates, wider base, export friendliness and tax neutrality, have brought down the overall tax burden for the middle class and enhanced the ease of doing business, especially for small industry bodies. In fact, seamless GST implementation by the Modi government is a glowing tribute to what political will-power and determination can achieve. Under GST, Central Excise duty, Additional Excise duty, Service Tax and additional duty of customs (equivalent to excise), State VAT, entertainment tax, taxes on lotteries, betting and gambling, and entry tax (not levied by local bodies) have been subsumed within GST. Other taxes subsumed are Octroi, entry tax and luxury tax, thus making GST the single largest indirect taxation system not only in India, but globally too.
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One Nation, One Tax, embodied by GST, is the single biggest indirect tax reform in India's economic landscape, made possible by the conviction of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and it is truly creating a unified and integrated market in more ways than one. A very interesting quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes Junior is — 'I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilisation." Basically, what Holmes implied was that taxes are the price we pay for a civilised society. In India, PM Modi is tirelessly working to ensure every penny of the taxpayer is spent judiciously, so that civil society gets more than its money's worth and nothing less.
Sanju Verma is an Economist, National Spokesperson for BJP and Bestselling Author of 'The Modi Gambit'. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views.
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tags :
Goods and services tax GST Narendra Modi Rahul Gandhi
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New Delhi, India, India
First Published:
August 18, 2025, 15:58 IST
News opinion Opinion | GST - India's Biggest Taxation Reform
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