Things weren’t usual for India on July 1, 2017. Yes, the exasperating traffic still existed, offices and schools still functioned, people still rushed to work, yet the day was different.
The Indian economy witnessed what some may call one of the biggest tax reforms of all time on this day. With the introduction of a now unified tax system, “GST”, every product had a different price tag attached to it.

The odd semester started off with a bang for the college’s official economic and finance society, ESOM. With a talk set on GST, this club struck the right chords with its very first event. 16^th August 2017 thus saw a large number of MITians march off to NLH 102 to get the “gist of GST”.

This awaited presentation started off with the ESOM members showing a video on the unawareness about GST among people, particularly students. The speakers did a commendable job explaining the nitty gritty of this new tax system. Starting from the very basics which included the type of taxes, to explaining something as complex as ‘Tax cascading’, it was evident that this hour long session, with numerous statistics and meticulous information, took days to prepare.
“We took about 10 days to prepare for this event and people genuinely wanted to know about GST” quoted Pavan, the Vice President of ESOM, on being asked about this talk”. The main initiative of ESOM’s GST talk was to make people aware of GST, the way it functioned, its loopholes, and how it affected students as a whole.

The audience was satisfied and content with this presentation. “I loved the ‘tax cascading’ and the ‘loopholes in GST’ parts. I’m looking forward to more such events” quoted a student whom we managed to grab a few words with.  The event did leave the students with a desire to learn more about this tax reform.
A riveting session, ESOM’s ‘gist of GST’ brought out the economic enthusiast hidden in everyone present.