India's Tax Compliance Burden: Real Fixes, Fairly Argued

GST taxpayers have grown from ~60 lakh to over 1.5 crore; over 8 crore ITRs were filed for AY 2024-25.

GST 2.0 cut slabs to mainly 5% and 18%; the new Income-tax Act 2025 trims 500+ rules to about 333.

The real pain is procedural: reconciliations, deadlines, notices and frozen credit, not just the rate.

Over 5 lakh income-tax appeals worth nearly Rs 18 lakh crore are stuck, signalling a dispute-resolution gap.

Experts urge stable rules, pre-filled returns, faster refunds and a trust-first, lighter-touch enforcement model.