GST — The 101st Amendment, the Council's Voting Maths, and Who Collects CGST, SGST and IGST

One Levy That Swallowed Seventeen

Before 1 July 2017 a single biscuit could carry central excise, state VAT, a municipal entry tax and Central Sales Tax when it crossed a border. Each tax was charged on a price that already contained the previous tax — the cascading effect — and the buyer paid for all of it without ever seeing it.

GST (Goods and Services Tax) folded roughly 17 taxes and 23 cesses into one levy, launched at a midnight session of Parliament on 1 July 2017. The enabling law was the Constitution (101st Amendment) Act, 2016.

Two words define it and both are examinable:

• ›Destination-based — the revenue belongs to the state where the goods are *consumed*, not where they were manufactured.
• ›Value-added — a seller is taxed only on the value he adds, because he claims Input Tax Credit (ITC) for tax already paid on his inputs.

France adopted a GST first, in 1954. India was roughly the 160th country to do so.

1. GST was brought into force in India by which Constitutional Amendment Act?

2. A dealer in Patna sells goods to a buyer in Patna at an 18% GST rate. How is the tax charged?

3. In the GST Council, what is the weightage of the Centre's vote and the combined weightage of all the states?

4. Which of the following is constitutionally kept outside the purview of GST altogether?

5. Which article of the Constitution gives both Parliament and the state legislatures the power to make laws with respect to GST?

6. The GST Compensation Cess guaranteed states a protected revenue growth rate for how long, and at what assumed rate?

7. Which state was the first in India to ratify the GST Constitutional Amendment Bill?

8. In the GST Council, what is the quorum for a meeting and the majority needed to take a decision?