International Research Journal of Education and Technology

One of the most celebrated reforms in India was the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) which was introduced in 2017, as an effort to eliminate a multi-layered system of indirect taxes and introduce a coherent nationwide taxing framework. GST was aimed at ensuring economic integration among the states, facilitation of the taxation process, and minimization of the cascading impacts of taxation. GST had substituted various states and central taxes including VAT, excise duty, service tax, central sales tax, and other taxes into a single tax with a national scope (Mukherjee, 2025). The government showed intentions to promote economic growth and the ease of doing business by making the taxation process easier and by creating a single market in India. Nevertheless, the introduction of GST was fraught with some difficulties. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were struggling with the issues of adjusting to the new compliance processes and taxes, despite their long-term vision. It had a mixed reaction on industries like consumer goods, automobiles and real estate. The Indian government has implemented GST 2.0, a modified form of the tax, to accommodate the complexities surrounding the filing of returns, frequent changes in tax rates, and the complex tax slab system, which adversely affected business operations, especially those that lacked a well-developed system to deal with the digitized version of the tax (Shambharkar and Tekade, 2025).GST 2.0 is set to simplify the business operations, especially by providing businesses with a better system to deal with the digital form of the tax, which is GST 2 GST 2.0 is made to ease compliance, create more transparency, and increase revenue collection and overcome the fears of large and small businesses (Canara Bank, 2025). GST 2.0 will help improve economic growth with the benefit that taxation will be more predictable and straightforward, solving bureaucratic barriers.