Taxing powers, under the Indian Constitution, are divided between the Centre and States. The Constitution allots separate legislative heads of taxation to the Centre and the States. The taxes enumerated in the Union List are leviable by the Centre exclusively while those mentioned in the State List are leviable by the States exclusively. Not many tax entries are contained in the Concurrent List. This has been done to avoid problems of overlapping and multiple taxation between the Centre and the States. The schemes of allocation of taxing powers between the Centre and the States is based on the broad principle that the taxes of a local nature have been allotted to the States while taxes which having a tax base extending over more than one State, or which should be levied on a uniform basis throughout the country and not vary from State to State, or which can be collected more conveniently by the Centre rather than the States have been allotted to the entre.

Author:
Dr. Ayaz Ahmad, Associate Professor, Unitedworld School of Law (UWSL)

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