Ok, let me take a shot at explaining why a single GST rate is a terrible idea for India - both in terms of equity and politics. TLDR: As long as income tax evasion is rampant, the govts will rely disproportionately on GST, a consumption tax. And hence, a single rate will shift the tax burden from the rich to the poor The total taxes extracted by the govt (centre + states) is in the range of 55T (all figures are ballpark, of the top of my head) - this is corporate/income taxes, GST, stamp duties, fuel and alcohol taxes etc. Taxes are either based on consumption (indirect) or on income (direct). There are multiple permutations and combinations in which the govts can extract these taxes from households/corporates. But ultimately they need to get their pound of flesh, ie, 55T. Now the peculiar thing about India is that roughly 2/3 of the taxes come from consumption and the remaining 1/3 from direct taxes. Why is this peculiar? Because in other major economies, the ratio is the opposite. And that makes sense - you want to extract more money from people earning high income. In a consumption tax heavy system with a single rate, the poor end up paying a higher proportion of their income as taxes (because their savings are lower). The obvious reason that we have a low direct tax/GDP ratio is because of rampant tax evasion. The above factors informs the idea behind multi-rate GST. One, you want to ensure that the rich pay a proportionately higher share to the exchequer. Two, those who evade direct taxes at least end up paying some taxes due to their consumption. Now let's look at the GST numbers. Total collection is about ₹20T. Of this nearly 15% comes from auto sales alone. I would guess that car sales account for more than half of that and bike sales the rest. What happens if we theoretically move to a single rate of, say 14%. The taxes from auto sales drop down by, say ₹1.5T. Thats a sizeable benefit to the top 10% (car buyers) and top 50% (bike buyers) households. But this ₹1.5 revenue loss gets offset by higher rates on hitherto low/zero tax goods which are consumed by everyone including the bottom 50%. IOW, it's a shift in tax burden from the rich to the poor. So what is the way forward? It is to steadily expand the direct tax base and simultaneously moderate the average tax rate on GST. As GST becomes a smaller and smaller part of the overall tax pie, one can look at reducing tax slabs and ultimately make it a 2-3 rate structure.

𝗔𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮 has 𝗙𝗮𝗰𝗲𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸. 𝗖𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗮 has 𝗧𝗶𝗸𝗧𝗼𝗸. 𝗦𝘄𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗻 has 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘆. 𝗥𝘂𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗮 has 𝗧𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺. What does 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗮 have?

What do you call such people?