GST PERCEPTIONS Rajat Deb*, Raju Debnath**, Priti Kumari Mahto*** INTRODUCTION The word ‘tax’ has been derived from a Latin word ‘taxare’ which has implied to estimate which is enforceable by law and leviable without expecting any direct benefts accruing to the payee (Garg, 2014). Indirect taxes have been levied on the different stages or on the fnal costs of production or on the consumptions and on the rendered services, imports and exports of goods and indirectly paid by the ultimate users (Sen & Biswas, 2017). Literature has validated that goods and services tax (hereafter, GST) which is also known as value added tax (VAT) globally, has originated in France in 1950s (Lin, 2008; Palil & Ibrahim, 2012) and currently has its presence in more than 160 countries (Sansui, Omar & Sansui, 2015). As far as prevailing rates of levying GST are concerned, some countries have been following higher rates, e.g., the UK, the USA, Australia, and Brazil whereas others have lower rates, e.g., Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Cambodia and the Philippines (Ezeoha & Ogamba, 2010; Von Heldenwang & Ivanyna, 2012). Literature has indicated international organizations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECED) have consistently putting pressure on many countries including India to adopt their best practices on taxation to increase government revenues, reduction of cross border taxes, widening the bases for corporate income tax (CIT), personal income tax (PIT) as well as VAT (Bastiaens & Rudra, 2016; Seelkopf, Lierse & Schmitt, 2016; Genschel, Lierse & Seelkopf, 2016). Although in the proposed GST Acts enacted by the central, state and union territory governments in India, there is no provision for bringing stamp duties and agricultural lands within the ambit of the proposed GST but, internationally countries like Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and South Africa have been levying the same (Subramanian, 2017). Moreover, agricultural products, electricity and petro products have been excluded from the proposed GST ambit and rates of levying GST on jewelry are yet to be decided (ET editorial, 2017). Studies on GST have been attempted globally in delve e.g., in Malaysia [perception studies on the implementation issues (Huang & Liu, 2013; Tajudin, 2014; Shaari, Ali & Ismail, 2015), budget defcits by introducing GST (Margaret & Khorana, 2011) and impacts of excessive paper works on compliance (Rametse & Young, 2009)]. Researchers have conceded GST has varying impacts across the nations such as in the New Zeland [compliance in property sector (Claus, 2014)] and in Australia [e.g., impacts on the housing mortgage (Valadkhani & Layton, 2004; Liu & Huang, 2010; Benjamin & Allen, 2011), input tax credit (Bolton & Dollery, 2005; Huang & Liu, 2012)]. Furthermore, GST studies in France [impact assessment of VAT (Nichele & Robin, 1995)], in Italy [distributional effect of the VAT (Liberati, 2001)], in Ethiopia [VAT introduction effects (Munoz & Cho, 2003)] and in Namibia [attitudes and fairness of the tax system e.g., GST (Olivia, 2011)] have been documented. Scholars have also addressed multiple aspects of GST in the South Africa [assaying impacts of the VAT on welfare outcome (Alderman & del Ninno, 1999; Go et al., 2005; Bangalee & Suleman, 2017)], in the EU countries [VAT gaps (Keen & Smith, 2007; CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy * Assistant Professor, Department of Commerce, Tripura University (A Central University), West Tripura, Tripura, India. Email: debrajat3@gmail.com ** M.Com. Department of Commerce, Tripura University (A Central University), West Tripura, Tripura, India. *** JRF Research Scholar, Department of Education, Tripura University (A Central University), West Tripura, Tripura, India. Abstract The Goods and Services Tax (GST), a big and much awaited bet, likely to alter the Indian economy’s landscape signifcantly. It has been estimated that the combined GST collection would exceed the individual collections of erstwhile excise and service tax collections which would contribute around 6 percent in GDP. The study has attempted to assess the selective stakeholders’GST perceptions during the transition period of its rollover. It has framed two hypotheses and a conceptual model for executing the study. By adopting the cross- sectional research design and applying the survey strategy, it has gathered data from 170 sample respondents. Convenience sampling technique has been used for collecting the primary data. Reliability and validity of the tool has also been tested. Signifcant statistical results have indicated that the taxpayers’ attitudes and costs of compliance have probably effected the GST compliance which, in turn would curb infations and evading the tax evasions. Limitations, practical implications and future research directions have been highlighted. Keywords: GST, Tax Compliance, Tax Evasions, Survey, Inferential Statistics Journal of Commerce & Accounting Research 9 (1) 2020, 35-49 http://publishingindia.com/jcar/ Submitted: 04 May, 2019 Revised: 01 October, 2019 Accepted: 02 December, 2019