GST-nomics: How to eat your popcorn and tax it too

I have little or no sympathy for those doubting Thomases who continue to question the stupendous growth of our economy — such people should be packed off to one of the coral reefs around the Great Nicobar, which shall soon be ground to dust once the mega-crony project there takes off; it will serve them right. For under the able guidance of she-who-does-not-eat-onions we have moved from being a 'pakoda economy' to a 'popcorn economy', whose symbolism is matched by substance. Or at least, that's what the wiseacres of the GST (grasping shifting tax) Council think.

At the council meeting in the third week of December, it was decided to pop the popcorn bubble that has made billionaires out of those multiplex barons, what with the popcorn costing more than the movie ticket!

The soundest economic policy of all, according to Confucius, is that if you can't stop Peter from ripping off Paul, then ensure that you get your share of Peter's booty. And so, the GST on popcorn has three separate rates, rising to 18 per cent for the caramelised, sugary variety.

According to the halwa-eating lady, this is because when you caramelise the humble popcorn, it becomes a sweet and should be taxed as such. Notice the hair-splitting distinctions and the fine-tuning done by our tax experts, who quite clearly have too much time on their hands.

But here's a question for them that begs an answer: if one buys caramelised popcorn while watching a tax-exempted film like Kashmir Files or Kerala Story or Sabarmati Report, will that popcorn also be exempt from GST? Because, since no one watches a film in a theatre these days without munching on popcorn, if the stuff is not made tax-free then no one is going to watch these movies, defeating the patriotic purpose behind making them tax-free.

And then, where is your fake nationalism? Just as there can be no FIR under the PMLA if there is no FIR in the predicate offence, similarly there should be no tax on popcorn if there is no tax on the movie itself. Makes sense, right?

A friend of mine who is still in government informs me, sotto voce, that the next target of the eagle-eyed council will be the even humbler condom. Currently there is no GST on condoms, but by extending the caramelised popcorn logic, a GST of 18 per cent is likely to be imposed on flavoured condoms as they shall come into the category of either sweets or fruits, depending on the flavour she fancies!

Makes sense, if you ask me; with both sweets and fruits having become so expensive — 18 and 12 per cent GST respectively, in case you didn't know — more and more people are getting their kicks out of flavoured condoms instead — strawberry, mango, chocolate, rajbhog — to satisfy their sweet er... tooth.

According to a tweet by the CEO of Swiggy on 1 January 2025, condoms were among the most ordered items on 31 December 2024 — 1.12 lakh packets on Swiggy and 4,779 on Blinkit; the overwhelming favourites were the chocolate flavoured ones! The finance ministry may just be on the right trail to reduce its deficit.

But wait, that's not all, dear reader, you haven't even begun to fathom the genius of our tax-man. It is also proposed that for condoms bought/used out of wedlock, the GST rate shall be 28 per cent, for it then becomes a "sin goods". Brilliant, isn't it?

One's marital status will be verified at the POS (point of sale, NOT point of sex), for which the government shall shortly be issuing, and making mandatory, another ID document — the BAM (bespoke and married) card. The card shall have to be renewed every year, given the rising incidence of divorces. Divorcees shall have to pay the 28 per cent rate (if they still want to have sex, that is): another clever move by this Vishwaguru government to discourage divorces.

Clearly, our GST mandarins have gone berserk. As one social media influencer pointed out, the British had imposed a salt tax, but our native born tsars have gone one better by imposing a higher sugar tax.

I'm told there's also a proposal to levy GST on the Sulabh Sauchalay; currently the service charge for taking a leak in one of them is Rs 5, but there might now be a GST of 18 per cent levied for diabetics: they are passing sugar, you see.

Consider next the ubiquitous biryani, a legacy of the much reviled Mughals but consumed by the ton by our sanatan dharm bhakts. Swiggy's annual report for 2024, released last week, informs us that it was the highest selling dish this year on their platform — 83 million dishes, or three per second!

There is no GST on fresh meat or rice, but put the two together in a biryani and hey presto, it now has a GST of 12 per cent! And that's not all: if you eat it in an AC restaurant you will have to shell out a GST of 18 per cent, and if you wolf it down in a five-star hotel, the rate is now 28 per cent. No wonder the astute Indian prefers to order it from Swiggy, where he pays 5 per cent tax, (the rate may go up depending on whether it has an egg in it!)

However, give the devil his due (if not his tax) — our tax guys are faithful to that other adage of Confucius: If you have to be stupid, at least be consistent in your stupidity. To the point where our GST is now probably the most complex, illogical, avaricious and arcane tax in the world. As someone said: the best things in life are free, but sooner or later the government will find a way to tax it.

It's not for nothing that the words 'taxman' and 'taxidermist' have their first three letters in common — the only difference is that whereas the latter takes only your skin, the former takes it all. As far back as 1947, Churchill, while giving his famous doomsday prediction for India, had said "a day will come when even air and water would be taxed in India". Ms Sitharaman has the dubious distinction of making that prediction come true. Churchill did not mention shit, but don't cavil folks, for even that is now being taxed in Himachal.

Views are personal

Avay Shukla is a retired IAS officer and author of Disappearing Democracy: Dismantling of a Nation and other works. He blogs at avayshukla.blogspot.com