Emerging GST issues due to Covid-19 and its impact on the Indian Business

Abstract

On 1st July 2017, Goods and Service Tax (GST) was implemented to replace a large number of indirect tax both at state and union level in order to bring a centralized tax structure aiming at increase in India's rate of GDP growth by as much as 2%. But the GST centralized structure emerged as a roadblock during COVID-19 Crisis. The present Central Government declared that the Centre would compensate the State for low GST collection for the five years as per the normal state revenues in the older tax regime. It became worse as soon as India went into lockdown in March for the prevention of ongoing global pandemic. State revenue streams started drying up at the same time the expenditure went up due to health emergency causing economic downfall. The COVID- 19 is considered as the most crucial global heath calamity posing enormous health, economic and social challenges to the entire human population. This paper aims to focus on the impact of the pandemic on GST and different Indian industries with the help of current data and illustrations. It shall specifically throw light and discuss the impact on retail and e-commerce sector, travel and hospitality sector, transport, FMCG or fast-moving consumer goods and automobile sector showing the patterns of consumer before, during and after the pandemic. This paper intends to bring a perspective of the present and future outlook of the Indian economy as a response to the crisis. Industries I. INTRODUCTION The outbreak of Covid-19 has made the whole world stunned, the health care facilities, the businesses, day to day activities and economy has started rusting up due to the downgrading in the particular fields. The Indian Government after analyzing all the pros and cons of it, declared nationwide lockdown so as to bring these sectors back to the line of functioning in a particular matter and also to protect the lives and health of the humans. The main purpose 1 Authors are student at KIIT School of Law, Bhubaneshwar, India 2020. International Journal of Integrated Law Review