Delivery completed: On the GST Council meet, reforms

The decisions taken by the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council in its 57th meeting on Thursday reveal two distinct changes in the attitude of the tax administration : increased trust in the taxpayer, and reduced anxiety over tax revenues. This is a big change from the system in place so far, where taxpayers have been bogged down by compliance requirements, and the tax enforcement has used this complexity to try to extract every rupee it can. The data show gross collections have not often deviated significantly from the mean over the last two years. After nine years, taxpayers have also become familiar, if not comfortable, with the tax filing system. The previous meeting also rectified most rate-related issues in GST and even reduced the number of slabs, a major driver of the complexity of the tax system.