Q.What indirect taxes existed in India before GST? Why were they replaced?

Before GST, India ran several separate indirect taxes side by side, and their combined effect created real problems that GST was specifically designed to fix.

Pre-GST indirect taxes:

• Central Excise Duty — on manufacture of goods (Centre).
• Customs Duty — on imports/exports (Centre).
• Service Tax — on provision of services (Centre).
• VAT — on intra-state sale of goods (States).
• Central Sales Tax (CST) — on inter-state sale of goods (Centre, retained by origin state).
• Other state levies: Octroi/Entry Tax, Luxury Tax, Entertainment Tax.

Why replaced:

• Cascading effect (tax on tax) — input tax paid at one stage often could not be fully set off against tax due at a later stage, especially across different tax types, inflating the effective tax burden.
• Complex compliance — businesses had to deal with multiple tax authorities, multiple registrations, and multiple returns.
• Fragmented national market — rates and rules varied by state, and inter-state movement of goods faced check-post delays and CST complications.

Listing Customs Duty as having been 'subsumed' into GST — it was NOT subsumed and continues to be levied separately even after GST's introduction.