Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/229850 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
GIGA Working Papers No. 325
Publisher: 
German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Hamburg
Abstract: 
What kept the Goods and Services Tax (GST) from becoming a reality in India for a quarter of a century after the adoption of the structural adjustment programme in 1991? What made it possible in 2016? To what extent the Indian model of GST reflects a compromise between the need to keep fiscal federalism intact and to respond to a more global economic impera-tive? To what extent India's transition to a concurrent dual GST has brought about a change in the principles, rules, frameworks, and institutions guiding intergovernmental fiscal interactions? This paper investigates these issues and shows that the shifts in the indirect tax regime in India since independence have taken place within the structural context of constitutional rules, the economic policy paradigm and political dynamics. Party congruence after 2014 helped to facilitate the introduction of the GST, but the shape thereof was strongly marked by path-dependent logics and the role of state governments as institutional veto players. In addition, the paper examines the ways in which India's transition to a concurrent dual GST has brought about a fundamental change in the principles, rules, frameworks, and institutions guiding intergovernmental fiscal interactions.
Subjects: 
India
fiscal federalism
indirect tax reforms
GST
intergovernmental relations
fiscal autonomy
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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