Do we want ease of doing business or do we want tax complications? India Must Choose

Imagine this. You want to do a business transaction anywhere in India. You simply log in to a government portal. On that portal, you generate a proforma invoice or tax invoice based on the rates already fixed by the government. Then you share that invoice with your client on the same portal.

The client gets an automatic notification, checks the invoice, and makes the payment. Everything happens inside one system. The portal is also connected to your bank account.

The idea is simple. Let the government take its tax directly through its own software and allow me to focus on my business. I am ready to issue tax invoices from a government portal. Just take the tax. But please don’t force me into the complicated GST structure we have today.

Why should I file invoices on the GST portal? Why can’t I simply generate the bill and let the government handle the rest? The government should just tell me how much GST I owe for a particular period and give me the option to pay it directly from my bank. That’s all.

Take the digital media industry. We pay 18% GST. If the government wants its share from our billing, the process should be simple and peaceful.

Now look at a startup whose turnover is below ₹50 lakh. Such a company does not even need GST registration. Yet the reality is different. Even if one side is not registered under GST, the other side is still forced to charge 18%. In today’s India, almost every business transaction within the country comes with GST.

People have no choice but to pay taxes. But at least the process of paying those taxes should be easy, even for someone who is not a tax expert. Sadly, the current GST system is far too complicated.

You have to visit the portal again and again to file different returns like GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B. Then come CGST, SGST and IGST. For an ordinary business owner, this becomes a monthly headache.

I do not want to spend my time understanding all these complications. That is why I am forced to hire a Chartered Accountant from the very first day of my business, even when the company is less than a year old. This becomes an extra burden.

In our own case at Digpu News Network, when we received the financial statements after the first year, we found a gap of several lakhs. After three days of checking every entry, we discovered the mistake and informed the CA. It was pure negligence. So what was the point of paying a CA if this is the result?

In the last few decades, I have seen a huge growth in the Chartered Accountancy profession. Many CAs have become millionaires. At the same time, thousands of small companies and MSMEs are struggling to survive under the weight of compliance. This imbalance should worry all of us.

Why should a small company need a CA just to stay compliant? Can’t the process of filing taxes be made simple and affordable for ordinary business owners?

The real question is this: Do we want ease of doing business or do we want tax complications?

I hardly know of any small firm in India that is not dealing with GST in some form. The bigger question is why the government charges 18% GST on digital businesses when it wants to make India a digitally skilled nation.

GST rates in India start from 5% and go up to 40%. Most industries fall under 12% or 18%. On one side there is a heavy tax burden. On the other side there is a complicated filing process.

Since GST was implemented, the Government of India has collected around ₹14.13 lakh crore in gross GST revenue between July 2017 and March 2026. With such a large amount collected, can the government not spend a small part of it to create a simple portal? A system where users generate invoices and the software itself calculates one single amount to be paid once a month or once a quarter. Why force businesses to visit the portal multiple times? Just make it easy.

According to some reports, a large number of startups and MSMEs have shifted their operations or banking to countries with simpler tax systems such as the UAE, Singapore, the UK and the USA.

The question is no longer only about the tax rate. The real question is whether India wants to make compliance so difficult that businesses start looking for easier destinations.