A resounding majority of India Inc have reported a positive and neutral experience with Goods and Services Tax (GST) with digitisation and rate rationalisation emerging as key factors benefiting businesses, but flagged concerns in delays in refund and audit related issues, a Deloitte India survey said on Tuesday.

Released ahead of GST completing 9 years on July 1, Deloitte India’s GST@9 survey called for the next phase of reform to move beyond digitalisation to an AI-driven compliance and data-led dispute reduction.

The survey, based on 1,096 responses from leaders across eight industries, including MSMEs, showed increased stakeholder confidence with a "near universal acceptance", with 99 per cent positive and neutral sentiment, and with negative perception of less than 1 per cent.

GST, which subsumed 17 local taxes and 13 cesses, was rolled out on July 1, 2017. The GST taxpayer base has grown from 66.5 lakh in 2017 to about 1.65 crore in 2026.

The Deloitte India survey outlined that the priority agenda for the next set of GST reforms include interpretational clarity as sought by 87 per cent of survey respondents. The respondents sought operational priorities with uniformity in audits (61 per cent) and faster refunds (36 per cent).

Inverted duty reform emerged as a sectoral priority, led by expanding the refund formula (69 per cent), further rate rationalisation (63 per cent) and extending refund to past ITC accumulation (51 per cent).

Centralised audits (72 per cent) have emerged as leading reform priorities, while a stricter timeline for refunds, and a pro-revenue approach in audit and parallel proceedings by Central and State GST authorities have emerged as the top concern areas, according to the survey.

Deloitte South Asia, President, Tax, Gokul Chaudhri said GST has significantly improved compliance and transparency with the GST Network as India’s trusted tax framework, and intelligent, integrated capabilities will soon be a reality.

An overwhelming 89 per cent of stakeholders identify AI-led data processing and reconciliation as their top priority, 84 per cent support automatic tax utilisation on the GST portal and 53 per cent call for a unified taxpayer dashboard.

"Collectively, these signal a shift towards embedded intelligence, deeper automation and seamless digital experiences to deliver greater transparency, certainty and global competitiveness," Chaudhri said.

Deloitte India, Partner and Leader, Indirect Tax, Mahesh Jaising said, "As GST enters its next phase of evolution, it is an opportune moment to address the top policy area of the survey, i.e., working capital concerns, such as expanding the scope of the inverted duty structure refund formula to include input services and capital goods".

Published on June 23, 2026