<b>T N Ninan: </b>Celebrating, with fingers crossed!

How exactly things will pan out once GST is in place will be known in the coming months and years

As Benjamin Franklin wrote, nothing is certain in this world other than death and taxes. India’s experience with taxes has often been worse than death (which at least has finality to it!). That is all the more reason to pause and celebrate the advent next week of the single most important reform of the country’s tax system since Independence. The country’s arrival at the stage of introducing a value-added tax that integrates treatment of goods and services, and covers both Centre and states, is a massive achievement — even if marked by the compromises and delays involved in getting anything