Our GST regime needs a return to factory setting

livemint.com:

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council’s latest decisions highlight just how complex this tax regime has become. Multi-utility vehicles (MUVs) with a minimum length of 4,000mm, or engine size of at least 1,500cc, or ground clearance exceeding 170mm will now be treated like sport-utility vehicles (SUVs), thus attracting a cess of 22% instead of 20%. MUVs that measure less will still attract the lower levy (applied as an extra after GST).

Also, how high a vehicle’s frame rests will now be measured unladen, without passengers i.e., as opposed to laden. Whether this switch applies only in this instance or broadly for all industry matters is unclear, though. In addition, sedans have been spared this burden, no matter how they compare on these counts, so big-wheelers have been judged particularly tax-worthy.

It’s a sign of just how far the idea of one simple tax across the economy, GST, has been stretched that top policy time is devoted to such tiny details. With luxury items placed in the top slab of 28% right from the start in 2017 so that the rich bear more tax, the GST Council’s discretion on slotting goods and services into slabs has made space for vexed debates. This is at a feverish pitch in online gaming, a boom sector with its own tale of complexity.

Here, pleas of leniency had arisen from business players asking for games of skill to be treated apart from those of luck, echoing a debate over their legal status. The Council chose to club online gaming with other bets and gambles in the top slab, with 28% GST to be levied on the customer’s buy-in ticket price—as with any consumption tax—even if that’s the whole sum wagered. This bit about GST applying to the full value of an online bet has been a blow to internet