Q.What is GST? State its objectives.

GST was designed to solve several specific problems of the old indirect tax system all at once, under one unified law.

GST is a single, comprehensive, destination-based indirect tax on the supply of goods and services, introduced on 1st July 2017 under the 101st Constitutional Amendment Act, 2016, replacing most of the earlier central and state indirect taxes. It is popularly described as "One Nation, One Tax."

Objectives:

• Create a single, unified national market, replacing the fragmented state-wise structure.
• Eliminate the cascading effect (tax on tax) through comprehensive Input Tax Credit.
• Simplify compliance by replacing multiple taxes with one, filed through a largely unified return system.
• Broaden the tax base and improve tax buoyancy.
• Make Indian goods more export-competitive, by removing hidden cascading tax embedded in export prices under the old regime.

Describing GST as an origin-based tax (like the old CST) rather than correctly identifying it as destination-based — this is a fundamental structural feature the syllabus specifically tests.