The Indian government has roped in Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan to promote goods and services tax (GST), ahead of the sweeping tax reform’s implementation scheduled from July 1.
India’s Central Board of Excise and Customs will be making the 74-year-old Bachchan brand ambassador for GST.
A 40-second video featuring him has already been shot and is being circulated. “GST - An initiative to create a unified national market,” the Indian finance ministry said in a tweet, attaching the video.
In the video, Bachchan explains GST as an unifying force just like the three colours in the national flag. GST is an initiative to create ‘one nation, one tax, one market’, he says. The megastar has been roped in just as the rollout of the biggest tax overhaul since Indian Independence entered its final phase. Ace Indian badminton star PV Sindhu was previously the GST ambassador.
GST will simplify a web of taxes, regulations and border levies for India by subsuming an array of central and state levies including excise duty, service tax and VAT. It is being dubbed as the most significant economic reform since the BJP government came to power in 2014 and is expected to add as much as 2 percentage points to the GDP growth rate.
A four-rate structure that exempts or imposes a low rate of 5% tax on essential items and top rate of 28% tax on cars and consumer durables has been finalised. The other slabs of tax are 12% and 18%. (PTI)
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