There is no dearth of Opportunities… The question is, are you ready?

Inspired by Canadian GST system, in 2017 India rolled out a new Indirect Tax regime called GST (Goods and Services Tax) and it had wide ramifications throughout all kinds of Trade. Supply became the Taxable Event instead of Sale or Manufacture. Some States gained, some states lost revenue. For those who lost revenue, there was a provision for compensation.

While it shut down the areas of work in Excise, Service Tax and VAT, it created many career opportunities in GST. Not only the routine compliances, return filing work but also the advisory and consulting work, data analytics, logistics management, audit were the areas of career that emerged. Changing the indirect tax regime to such an extent in a country of 100+ crore population wherein the earlier indirect taxes such as service tax, VAT etc. had percolated to every level reaching right till the households was a gargantuan task. Yes, there were multiple challenges but GST Council, Adjudicating Authorities, Appellate Authorities, Advance Ruling… all these provided multi-layered review mechanism.

While 5%, 12%, 18% and 28% were the main four tax buckets in GST 1.0, 70-75% of the revenue was collected in 18% bucket alone. GSTN, E-Way bill and E-Invoicing kept the GST regime at the forefront of technology too.

And here comes GST 2.0 starting 22 nd September 2025 with only 2 primary buckets of taxes: 5% and 18%. Why 22 nd September? That is when Navratri, the major festival in India starts this year and the tax overhaul starting on this occasion is expected to usher our nation into major jump in the overall trade volume. Because of 50% tariffs by USA, the mood has been subdued in many of the sectors which were primarily thriving on the exports to USA and this overhaul in GST is going to reduce the prices of many goods and services and that is expected to increase the overall demand which to a great extent may compensate the loss of revenue due to USA tariffs. The third rate of 40% will be on Luxury and Sin goods like high end vehicles, tobacco. Life and Health Insurances, Life-saving medicines now will have zero GST.

However mid-month roll out complicates billing and ERP systems, ITC Utilisation becomes challenging because the output tax rate comes down. But these are short term challenges. Long term benefit is the goods and services will become cheaper. Though states are fearing loss of revenue, hopefully the increase in demand will eliminate this loss.

Direct as well as Indirect Tax both continue to be excellent career opportunities for the students who love Tax as the subject. Any Certification in Indirect Tax from a premier Institute will significantly boost your knowledge which will give you upper edge in getting the suitable jobs.

Benjamin Franklin said, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” So be prepared to make a career in the latter while we have no control anyway on the former.