The Interim Budget of 2019-2020 delivered by India’s Finance Minister outlaid the effects and implications of GST on Indian economy for the previous year. As the first budget after GST implementation, it was a much-anticipated budget for various reasons.
It is crucial for every Indian to know everything about GST, as it directly affects every citizen of this country.
GST is a single and uniform indirect taxation system across the country. It replaces multiple taxes, both at the Central and State levels, like VAT, Cess, Sales Tax, Entertainment Tax and Excise Duty. GST replaces all these taxes and imposes a single tax for every product and service.
GST has 3 parts, namely CGST, SGST and IGST. There are many benefits of GST over the previous tax regime. It’s easy to understand and comply to, there is much less paperwork involved, and it also replaces the cascading tax effect of the previous regime.
As expected, this budget presented the facts and figures of revenue collected through GST. It also laid a roadmap for the coming years, at least as far as GST is concerned.
The Finance Minister mentioned that tax collection has been slower than expected for 2018-19. However, he attributed that to the instability effect caused by a complete overhaul of the taxation system.
The implications of GST are expected to stabilise within this year, and the advantages of GST will start to gain ground from 2019-2020 according to this Interim Budget. Its full benefits will be apparent in the following years.