Tax System Reform in India

Many developing countries have embarked on tax reforms in recent years. Such reforms were motivated both by local factors as well as by rapid internationalization of economic activities. The need to correct fiscal imbalances and the transition from a centralized plan to a market economy were the important local factors hastening tax reforms. Difficulties in compressing expenditures necessitated that tax system reform take an important role in fiscal adjustment strategy. The transition from plan to market required the substitution of administered prices with market determined prices, the replacement of physical controls with financial controls, and the substitution of public enterprise profits with tax revenues.