Voting in the Goods and Service Tax Council of India

Bhattacherjee, Sanjay and Sarkar, Palash (2018): Voting in the Goods and Service Tax Council of India.

Abstract

In 2017, India enacted a new taxation law called the Goods and Services Tax (GST). This law created a GST Council with representatives of the Union government and the Provincial governments. The decision making procedure in the GST Council is specified to be by weighted voting. This work performs a detailed study of such a mechanism using the framework of formal voting games. On a theoretical note, we introduce several new notions regarding blocking dynamics of voting games. These are then applied to the study of voting in the GST context. We identify a set of basic desiderata and propose some modifications to the voting rule in the GST Act.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Goods and Services Tax (GST); GST Council; Weighted majority voting games; Winning and blocking coalition; Blocking power; Efficiency; Influence
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C7 - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory > C71 - Cooperative Games; D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making; D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making > D72 - Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior; D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making > D73 - Bureaucracy ; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations ; Corruption; G - Financial Economics > G2 - Financial Institutions and Services > G28 - Government Policy and Regulation; H - Public Economics > H1 - Structure and Scope of Government; H - Public Economics > H2 - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue; H - Public Economics > H7 - State and Local Government ; Intergovernmental Relations > H71 - State and Local Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue; H - Public Economics > H7 - State and Local Government ; Intergovernmental Relations > H77 - Intergovernmental Relations ; Federalism ; Secession; Y - Miscellaneous Categories > Y1 - Data: Tables and Charts > Y10 - Data: Tables and Charts; Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology > Z18 - Public Policy

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