Goods and Services Tax design: unified destination based levy with input credit flow and institutional harmonisation required.
The paper proposes a destination based dual GST subsuming existing indirect taxes, with centre and states levying tax on a common base, an Integrated GST for inter state transactions, broad input tax credit flow, unified registration and electronic returns, and conversion of legacy exemptions into refund schemes. It identifies core issues-revenue neutrality, coverage and scope of "consideration", input credit disputes, transitional treatment of composite contracts, inter state jurisdiction rules, and the need for PAN India uniformity enforced via a GST Council-and stresses political, IT, administrative and compliance hurdles to a successful, phased roll out. (AI Summary)