Measuring Public Awareness towards Goods and Services Tax (GST): An Empirical Study in Himmatnagar

Abstract

The focus of this paper is to measure public awareness, knowledge, and understanding of goods and service tax (GST) in the context of Himmatnagar. The introduction of GST is a very significant step in the field of indirect tax reforms in India. By merging a large number of Central and State taxes into a single tax and allowing set-off of prior-stage taxes, it would mitigate the ill-effects of cascading and give the way for a common tax at the national level.
The idea of GST is mooted by Kelkar Task Force in 2004, but it is practically implemented in the year 2017. Throughout the period, govt. has taken various steps to understand and implement the system. Even though at an early stage of GST implementation, the public appears to be somewhat confused on the GST system and many question and complaints are raised on the authorities. This study contributes to the existing literature on public awareness, knowledge, and understanding towards goods and service tax (GST), which is basically under-researched in the city of Himmatnagar.