Earmarked Taxes: An Indian Case Study

Earmarked taxes called cesses are mandatory taxes specifically collected for earmarked public purposes. This article looks at
the conceptual understanding of earmarking and then uses the Indian experience as a case study to examine how earmarking
works in practice and the ensuing challenges. The article also explains the standards that a cess tax must fulfil under Indian law
to be constitutionally valid while highlighting how the cess laws fare in this regard. Having demonstrated the gaps, the article
presents the jurisprudence on cess taxes developed by the constitutional courts. The authors conclude by advocating the need
for a rights-based analysis of earmarking.