In this talk hosted by Hyderabad Urban Lab, Dr. Amir Ullah Khan, will trace the history of GST and the road ahead. With the rollout of the GST, it is hoped that taxes would be simplified and harmonised. Tax terrorism would get extinguished. It may come at the cost of making India less of a federal state, but the tradeoff could be well worth it. However the beginnings have been rough. Not only is the industry unprepared, it is obvious that the government also is way behind on its preparations. The Telangana CM was the first to have realized that GST will cause distress. He has argued that that several thousands of workers sustain on the beedi industry and as such, imposing excess taxes on the industry will adversely impact the beedi workers. With more than 1,400 commodities that will have to be fitted into the five slabs – zero, 5 per cent, 12 per cent, 18 per cent and 28 per cent, the tax department has its hands full. It has still not decided what to do with sin products where we need to fix special cesses on demerit goods that are now capped at 15 per cent for aerated drinks and luxury cars, and at 135 per cent for pan masala, and 290 per cent or Rs 4,170 per 1,000 sticks for cigarettes. Most items therefore will be fit into the existing VAT scheme. However at the moment, each state differs so much that actual fitments will involve intense lobbying by states. Businesses will start their own lobbying. We may well return to the age old system of business lobbyists using all means possible to get their produce into the lower slabs. The government is staring into a possible embarrassment. Dr. Amir Ulla Khan, the speaker is a development economist who is currently a professor at the Maulana Azad Urdu Unviersity and is no stranger to Hyderabad. He was member of the Telangana commission of inquiry into the socio economic conditions of Minorities. He is on the board of several key institutions of policy research, policymaking and development interventions.