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Peer-reviewed

Beyond Revenue: Rethinking India’s Tax Policy for Fiscal, Social, and Administrative Sustainability

Dr. Dilip Barik , Sumedha Majumder , Anjana Roy

DIP: 18.02.S23/20251004

DOI: 10.25215/2455/1004S23

Received: November 17, 2025; Revision Received: November 22, 2025; Accepted: November 26, 2025

Abstract

Sustainability in governance is considered as beyond environmental component to include the interconnected pillars of economic resilience, social equity, and long-term administrative viability. A progressive tax structure focus on direct taxes, traditionally promotes equity and redistribution, a regressive structure dominated by indirect taxes (GST), offers administrative simplicity and enhancing revenue collection. The study focuses on the Progressive and Regressive tax structure and evaluates the contribution to the pillars of Economic Sustainability, Social Sustainability & Administrative Sustainability to fostering equitable and sustainable development in India. This study is descriptive and analytical in nature. We used secondary data and collected from various authentic sources e.g. Union Budget, report of World Bank, IMF, RBI report etc. Trend analysis, Incident Analysis and Policy Analysis are used to interpret the data for analyzing purpose. The study highlights that direct tax system in India is Progressive but has a narrow base and Indirect tax system is Regressive which gives an effect of disposable income of the masses, post-tax income inequality etc. Though the cascading of taxes can be eliminated through digitalization process in GSTN portal, but, this imbalance, which exacerbates post-tax income inequality, undermines the social, and Administrative Sustainability of the country. The study reveals that a progressive or regressive tax-system is sub-optimal for India’s socio-economic condition. A balanced policy that broadens the progressive direct tax base, reorient the regressive (GST) taxes by zero-rating on essential goods, and use modern technology to improve tax administration. We know that tax-structured are used as a revenue-increasing tool. But it should be designed strategically to balance between economic efficiency and distributive social justice.

The author(s) appreciates all those who participated in the study and helped to facilitate the research process.

The author(s) declared no conflict of interest.

This is an Open Access Research distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any Medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Responding Author Information

Dr. Dilip Barik @ dilipbarik541@gmail.com

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Beyond Revenue: Rethinking India’s Tax Policy for Fiscal, Social, and Administrative Sustainability

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Article Overview

ISSN 2455-670X

DIP: 18.02.S23/20251004

DOI: 10.25215/2455/1004S23

Published in

International Conference on Business Responsibility for Sustainable Development 17.12.2025

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