A big danger awaits customers

People are worried about the impact of oil price following the Russia - Ukraine war. With assembly elections in five states over, they are expecting a sharp rise in fuel prices at any moment. For the past three months, there has been no increase in fuel prices. So fuel prices can be hiked at any moment.

While people are anxious about the fuel price hike, another discussion for a change is taking place in the background. The GST reform, which was introduced to reduce the tax burden on the people, causes difficulty. The occasional changes in the name of concessions did not yield significant results. There are four slabs in GST, namely five, twelve, eighteen and twenty-eight. The GST Council is currently in talks to reduce these slabs to three with the aim of increasing revenue. The proposal could be approved at the next council meeting as states continue to press for more revenue. If that happens then there is no doubt that the tax burden on the people will increase again.

Raising the base slab to eight and abandoning the twelfth slab increases the burden on the customer. When states compete with each other to generate extra revenue, people are forced to bear it all. No one cares about the tax burden that the people will have to bear even when the states put a lot of pressure on the Center to extend the GST compensation package for another five years.