SBI GK Questions 2026

A direct tax is one whose burden cannot be shifted: the person or company assessed both pays it and bears it.

K. C. Neogy chaired the first Finance Commission, which was constituted in 1951 under Article 280 soon after the Constitution came into force, and whose recommendations covered the sharing of income tax and union excise duties with the States.

Article 112 requires the President to cause a statement of the estimated receipts and expenditure of the Government of India for every financial year to be laid before both Houses of Parliament, and that statement is the Annual Financial Statement.

Primary deficit equals fiscal deficit minus interest payments. Interest is the price of borrowing done in earlier years, so removing it leaves the gap created by the current year's own decisions on spending and taxation, which is why economists read the primary deficit as a measure of present fiscal discipline.

The State Finance Commission owes its existence directly to the Constitution: Article 243-I, added by the seventy-third Amendment, requires the Governor to constitute it every fifth year for the Panchayats, and Article 243-Y extends the arrangement to the Municipalities.

Article 243-I, inserted by the seventy-third Constitutional Amendment of 1992, requires the Governor of a State to constitute a Finance Commission at the expiration of every fifth year to review the financial position of the Panchayats and to recommend how taxes, duties, tolls and fees should be divided between the…

Fiscal deficit measures the whole amount the government must borrow in a year, because it compares everything it spends with everything it earns from taxes, non-tax revenue, recovery of loans and disinvestment, leaving borrowing out of the receipts side.

The Finance Commission is constituted by the President under Article 280, and it therefore makes its recommendations to the President.

Statement A is correct: Article 280 provides that the Commission shall consist of a Chairman and four other members appointed by the President.

Article 280 requires the President to constitute a Finance Commission at the expiration of every fifth year, or earlier if the President considers it necessary, consisting of a Chairman and four other members, and lists the matters on which it is to make recommendations.

Statement one is correct because the securities transaction tax is charged on the purchase and sale of securities on a recognised stock exchange and is borne by the investor who makes the transaction; the burden cannot be passed on to anybody else, which is the test of a direct tax…

Article 279A provides that a decision of the Council needs a majority of not less than three fourths of the weighted votes of the members present and voting, with the vote of the Centre carrying one third of the total votes cast and the votes of all the state governments…

It was levied on the net wealth of individuals, Hindu undivided families and companies, but it collected very little compared with the effort of assessing it, so it was withdrawn in 2015 and replaced by an additional surcharge on very high incomes.

France adopted the value added tax in 1954, and the idea of taxing only the value added at each stage, with credit for the tax paid earlier, spread from there to most of the world.

It is levied and collected by the Government of India on inter-state supplies under Article 269A, and the proceeds are apportioned between the Union and the state where the goods or services are consumed, which is what makes GST a destination-based tax.

The definition of goods and services tax inserted by the hundred and first amendment expressly excludes it, so states continue to levy state excise and value added tax on liquor, and it is a major source of their own revenue.

Under it the President constitutes the GST Council, which is chaired by the Union Finance Minister and includes the Union Minister of State for Finance and a minister nominated by each state.

It inserted Article 246A, Article 269A and Article 279A and made the sharing of taxing power between the Union and the states possible, so that both could tax the same supply.

GST was rolled out at a midnight session of Parliament and the date is now observed every year as GST Day.

It is the foundation of the whole tax system, because it means the executive cannot demand money from a citizen without a law passed by the competent legislature.