The Goods and Sales Tax (GST) was introduced in India on 1 April 2017. Despite various challenges and all other concerns, the GST has made its entry into the Indian economy with a new perspective to improve productivity and keep things simple. With all the positive changes that GST offers like the gst amnesty scheme, it is obvious that some people might find this as a reason to take time to understand the tax system better. However, in this article, we will look at some of the advantages of GST to consumers.
- Decrease in the price of goods & services
The GST will make all businesses pass on a proportional part of the tax collected to customers, which will mean that prices of goods and services will decrease. The same thing applies to restaurants, where you can’t just raise your prices by a few rupees every day because you’ll have to pay more as well
- Same price around the country
In India, there were many different tariffs and taxes on most products and services. If you go abroad, you would have found that the prices are much lower than in India because of this diversity. This means that if your monthly outgo was Rs 10,000, it may not be possible for you to save enough money to pay for that monthly expenditure in India without adding additional expenses on top of that amount like food or transportation costs (which could easily double or triple your monthly expense). By adopting GST, however, all the different taxes have become uniform across India and with other states’ taxes as well.
- Simplified tax system
Despite the different and complicated system of various types of GST returns overall it could still be considered the most simplified tax system. The GST system is simpler and less complex than the earlier taxes such as excise duty, sales tax, VAT etc. It helps reduce the compliance burden on businesses and makes it easier for them to file their returns.
GST has simplified the previous complex indirect tax system by replacing many taxes that are now levied by central government departments with one unified tax. It has also reduced opportunities for evasion by eliminating untaxed supplies in interstate trade.
- Trust in the transparent tax system
The GST is an open-book system where all details related to taxpayers are available online, making it easy for people to access information about their taxes without going through multiple forms or waiting for long periods at various offices. The system also provides all taxpayers with an e-way bill for the movement of goods across states, which will help in reducing the paperwork and time required for delivering goods from one state to another. People have more trust in government today because they know that all transactions will be settled properly under the GST regime and nobody will cheat them by not paying their dues or evading taxes.
