-ThePrint.in In 'The Working of the Indian Constitution', T.M. Thomas Isaac examines the functioning of GST to assess if its high expectations have been realised. The Goods and Service Tax (GST) Council has been hailed as a model federal institution, where both states and the centre are represented, and consensus is arrived through a detailed deliberative process. Until the 38th GST Council meeting in December 2019, there had not been a single...

-Newsclick.in And, dipping customs collections show easing of imports, which is destroying Indian producers. It was once famously said that the executive (government) is nothing but a committee to manage the affairs of the ruling class in any society. The Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party government is a fine example of this truth. The open and brazen way in which it has worked to the advantage of India’s powerful corporate sector has...

-Newsclick.in Modi government has been mercilessly hiking up taxes on petrol and diesel to take money from the people and boost its resources. Since the prices of petroleum products were deregulated some years back and supposedly “linked” to markets, the central government has weaponised this to simply impose an indirect tax burden on the people. Take the four big metros: Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. On an average, petrol prices have increased from...

Quite often it is argued by mainstream economists that a sizeable chunk of the Union Budget every year is wasted because the Government spends that on food and fertiliser subsidies. The burgeoning size of these two subsidies relative to the entire budget as well as the gross domestic product (GDP) is often used to build the argument that economic as well as environmental sustainability of the country is at stake...

-PTI * Subhash Chandra Garg from the tax revenues perspective, 2019-20 is proving to be a dysfunctional year * Former finance secretary says corporate tax, excise duties and customs are likely to see negative growth in collections in 2019-20 NEW DELHI: The government's tax collection is likely to fall short of its estimate by Rs2.5 lakh crore or 1.2% of GDP in 2019-20, former finance secretary Subhash Chandra Garg said on Sunday while...