Goods and Services Tax (GST) which replaces all indirect taxes in Indian tax system. It is an important tax reform carried out in India after Independence. The GST system will pave way for a single unified market across 29 Indian states. As per experts, GST will be beneficial for the Indian economy as a whole and it is expected that the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country will increase in long term. The new tax system is expected to change the way of the retail traders business and the tax policies with which they comply. The entire nation including policy makers in the Parliament, trade and businessmen or common man have debated about the introduction of GST as a new system of taxation before its introduction. In this paper an attempt has been made to find out the awareness about the new tax system among retail traders in Chintamani city which is a major contributing city in retail business in the share of economic growth of chikkaballapur district in total. The study has found that a majority of the respondents are aware of the GST system.  A large number of retail traders are still not prepared to adopt the new system.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Keywords: GST, Retailers, Taxation, VAT, Incidence.