History of Tax Law in India

Every time you pay GST on a chai at Churchgate or see tax deducted from a first stipend, you are at the end of a very long chain. Somebody decided that the State may take a share, and somebody else decided who collects it. Why does the Union take income tax while a State takes stamp-related revenue and a Municipal Corporation takes property tax? The answer is not logic. It is a few hundred years of history, and the exam expects you to tell it in order.

In two minutes

Indian tax law grew in four layers: old revenue systems, colonial statutes (income tax from 1860, a fresh Act in 1922), the Constitution of 1950 that split taxing powers between Union and States, and the post-1950 reform of direct taxes followed by the GST of 2017.

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