Take it easy

NOTHING in India is ever simple. It is too vast, too diverse, too argumentative and too democratic for any of its problems to lend themselves to easy answers. So an idea as revolutionary in its simplicity as a single, nationwide goods-and-services tax (GST) was never likely to go smoothly. Even so, it is disappointing that negotiations under way this week seem likely to result in a tax so complicated and multi-tiered that many of the benefits it offers will be bickered away before it is launched (page 72). One of its architects has lamented that, on present plans, it will reap only one-quarter of the extra economic growth that it could have stimulated.Introducing a nationwide tax to subsume India’s bewildering profusion of central, state and lower-level indirect taxes has been a decades-long effort. Passage of the legislation in August was seen as a triumph for Narendra Modi, the prime minister, and the biggest proof of his reformist credentials. The tax’s precise mechanics are being determined by a new body, the GST Council, combining the federal government and representatives of India’s 29 states. The hope is to reach agreement in time for the beginning of the next fiscal year in April 2017.