News reports have tended to view the development as the government bringing the GST Network under the purview of PMLA, complete with its arbitrary powers of investigation and arrest. This is a disquieting development.

The government has already identified thousands of entities registered with the GST Network as fraudulent vehicles for claiming unearned input tax credit (ITC) amounting to thousands of crores of rupees. But unleashing the Enforcement Directorate and the full force of the PMLA to weed out fraud makes the exercise seem more like tax terrorism than tax collection.

Even without PMLA and its arbitrary provisions, GST has become a pain for small and medium businesses, particularly at the state level. Many owners of run micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) have been complaining about visits by tax officials who threaten to find fault or levy tax demands unless their demands are met. Thanks to a legal system that takes ages and costs a fortune to settle cases, entrepreneurs often have no choice but to submit to these extortionate demands.

The beauty of the GST framework is that it leaves an audit trail that tax authorities can follow to either end of the transaction chain – at least in principle. In practice, following such an audit trail requires extensive use of analytics and intelligence to identify potential cases of evasion or malpractice.

India's is the first implementation of GST that is entirely online, so all the data is available for intelligent analysis. The government's task is to carry out such analysis and identify potential fraud. But the ability to conduct such analysis using advanced algorithms within the government is limited, especially at the state level. It may be a good idea for the central government to challenge startups in the field of analytics to come up with sound frameworks for detecting tax leakage.

Incidentally, gathering real-time information for instant analysis and actionable intelligence is a capability that is increasingly prized in many sectors, ranging from finance to combat operations. The Silicon Valley company Palantir – whose role in the Ukraine war has forced the world to take note of the role of information networks and analysis of data in warfare – advertises itself as the enabler of information dominance.

The ideas that startups come up with can be tested on actual data by the tax department, with the results verified physically and in good faith. It is this detailed analytical legwork that is being short-circuited with the scare tactics of taxmen and the arbitrary powers of the draconian PMLA.

India needs champions of information dominance in the war against tax evasion, and in other areas such as healthcare, education and evolution of skills, to prepare the economy to take advantage of opportunities as they arise.

Tax authorities would do well to foster companies that develop analytical frameworks that enable information dominance. If they instead choose to go down the path of fear and loathing, it will be most unfortunate for economic agents and tax collections.