Journal Press India®
It is a great pleasure in presenting our readers another insightful issue of Vision: Journal of Indian Taxation covering important areas in Indian taxation and public finance. With the implementation of major indirect tax reform in the form of Goods and Services tax in the country, it is important to understand its implications for revenue, fiscal policy, macroeconomic and sub-national fiscal issues and promotion of business and growth. Besides, there is a need to analyse the dynamics of revenue and fiscal situation of both Central and State governments and their implications. Papers in the earlier issues of Vision as well as in the current issue have been deliberating on these areas. The papers in the current issue deal with sub-national tax efficiency, budgetary impacts of Central fiscal transfers, fiscal convergence across Indian states, pattern of public spending on education, macroeconomic implications of fiscal consolidation, consumers’ perspective on GST and impact of GST on consumers’ spending and perspective on personal income tax planning.
The paper by Mohanty, Kumar and Patra examines the efficiency of states’ tax after implementation of VAT and factors determining VAT efficiency in Indian states. They have observed that the tax efficiency has plunged in the aftermath of state VAT regime. Urbanization ratio, billing and collection efficiency, bank credit ratio and share of agriculture sector are found to have a favourable effect on VAT efficiency. The paper by Panda verifies the possible budgetary impacts of federal fiscal transfers in India. The results suggest that federal transfers have adverse incentives on budgetary initiatives of States in mobilizing their own tax resources and regulating expenditure.
The paper entitled “Sigma and Beta Convergence in Revenues and Expenditure across Indian States” by Raut examines fiscal convergence across Indian states in pre and post FRBM period. He has observed that the convergence is more pronounced in the post-FRBM period. Besides the convergence analysis for different components of expenditure provides justifications for FRBM. The paper by Mitra and Rout provides a perspective on the changing pattern of public spending on education by both the Centre and the states with a special reference to Odisha. They have urged for higher allocation of resources to education sector. Nayak and Panda in their work examine the impact of fiscal consolidation on macroeconomic variables using time series data. Their findings suggest that there exists a long run relationship between GDP, fiscal consolidation, inflation and private investment. In long run fiscal deficit has adverse effect on growth.
The paper by Gupta and Agarwal, on the basis of primary data, analyses the consumers’ awareness about GST and immediate implications of GST on consumers’ spending. They have observed that that consumers, by and large have become acquainted with the GST structure. No significant association is observed between GST tax structure and spending behaviour of respondents. Pallavi and Anuradha in their paper examine the personal income tax planning, awareness of various tax saving schemes and investment pattern among academicians in Bengaluru. The study reveals that the level of awareness among the academicians on various tax saving schemes is low and personal factors influence the investment decisions. Further, bank deposits emerge as preferred investment option among others.
We sincerely hope this issue of Vision will be of great interest to our readers and policy makers and thank all stakeholders for their support and continued patronage. We also hope that the Vision continues to get contributions from diverse and unexplored areas of Indian taxation and its applied domains of public finance.
Dr. M. M. Sury
Dr. Prasant Kumar Panda
Editors