Journal Press India^®

VISION: Journal of Indian Taxation continues in its endeavour to addresses diverse themes in taxation and provide perspectives on pertinent issues that have a bearing on the overall tax system as well as finances of the government. The articles in this issue of VISION deal with both the theory and practice of taxation.

The article by Pramod Kumar Pandey and Jesmon Raj N. focuses on the compliance issues faced by MSMEs with special reference to the state of Karnataka. Employing survey method, the study finds that there are teething problems regarding GST compliance being faced by MSMEs, and therefore there is a need for policy interventions to improve compliance procedures for the overall growth of the MSME sector in India.

An interesting article by Ajit Kumar Singh is on ‘Fees for technical services and the absence of ‘Make Available Clause’ in tax treaties: Can a protocol not notified by the government trigger the ‘Most Favoured Nation Clause’? The object of this article is to critically reflect on the existing jurisprudence and constitutional provisions in India, along with the extant international practices. This article tends to argue that the recent judicial approaches reflect a manifest error of law, both in terms of national as well as international practices.

V. T. Vasagan, in his article analyses the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) at Delhi Mediating Centers. The author finds that there is a positive impact of cases refereed for mediation on cases mediated and cases settled through ADR. Hence, it has been concluded that ADR has strong impact to the settlement disputes and mediating centers are well functioning in handling of disputes.

Given the phenomenal rate of growth of e-commrce in India, the taxability of e-commerce transactions is a pertinent issue in terms of its revenue implications for the government. Rahul Bhasin, in his article on ‘Taxation of e-commerce: Overcoming challenges to traditional tax regimes’ discusses the taxation of e-commerce transactions in the post-GST era. The author observes that with the TCS provisions coming into force, tax authorities are empowered to monitor e-commerce transactions and ensure that suppliers selling their goods through e-commerce platforms do not get away with under-reporting their turnover.

Another interesting paper by Shailinder Sekhon is on ‘Indian Agricultural Income Lessens the Income Tax Burden – A Fiscal Illusion’. The paper highlights the fact that how a fiscal illusion is created by increasing the tax rates. State governments need to raise this issue at appropriate platforms to question why government is collecting additional tax revenue against the agricultural income which is the state subject.

The article by Sakshi Agrawal on ‘A Hermeneutical Study of Manusmriti and Adam Smith’s Canons of Taxation’ brings to light some discussion about the origin of the Canons of Taxation, given by Adam Smith, by comparing it with the ‘Manusmriti’.

A special feature of this issue of VISION is the ‘Commentary’ on ‘Meetings and Decisions of Goods and Services Tax Council (GST Council)’ wherein the editorial staff of the journal has painstakingly summarized the main decisions of all the 47 meetings of the GST Council, under the supervision of Dr. M. M. Sury.

We hope this issue of Vision will be of great interest to our readers and policy makers and we thank all authors, reviewers and readers for their support and continued patronage.

Dr. Prasant Kumar Panda
Dr. M. M. Sury
Editors