Vol. 2, Issue 11, Part H (2016)

Abstract
For over fifty years, in our country, indirect taxation was perplexed with multi and differential system. The various indirect taxes relating to customers infringed their freedom and they were saddled with the burden of additional taxes and overlapping taxes. The enlightened trade bodies such as Confederation of Indian Industries, Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Associated Chamber of Commerce guided the Government of India and the State Governments to done away with tax on tax cascading effect. After much deliberations the Central Government and certain discerning State governments switched over to Value Added Taxes. This paved way for CENVAT and in Karnataka, K-VAT in place of Karnataka Sales Tax (KST). Octroi, Inter-State tax and Local Cess. The present article traverses through the evolution of tax system and the evaluation of the VAT as a revolutionary tax system.