Permissive Tax Sharing (Omitted)
Official heading: “Taxes which are levied and collected by the Union and may be distributed between the Union and the States”
Originally, the Constitution maintained a bifurcated tax-sharing framework: income tax was mandatorily shared under Article 270, while Union excise duties were only permissively shared under Article 272 if Parliament so provided by law. Following the recommendations of the Tenth Finance Commission, the Eightieth Amendment (2000) created a unified divisible pool under Article 270, rendering Article 272 redundant.
- Source edition
- The Constitution of India (as on 1 May 2026)
- Source locator
- Part XII, Article 272, printed page 160
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1. In One Sentence
Article 272 formerly provided for permissive sharing of Union excise duties, and was omitted in 2000 when all central taxes were unified under Article 270.
2. What It Means in Everyday Language
In the original 1950 Constitution, Article 270 governed income tax (which was mandatorily shared with States), while Article 272 governed Union excise duties (which were only shared if Parliament passed an enabling law).
This fragmented system created fiscal distortions and disputes between the Centre and States regarding which taxes should be expanded.
The 80th Constitutional Amendment in 2000 accepted the Tenth Finance Commission’s recommendation for an alternative devolution scheme, consolidating all central taxes into a single divisible pool under Article 270 and formally omitting Article 272.
3. Practical Illustrative Example
An economist studying pre-2000 Indian public finance notes that Union excise duties required separate parliamentary sharing legislation.
4. Important Limits, Qualifications & Exceptions
Article 272 was an obsolete fiscal provision deleted during the 2000 tax devolution reforms.
- Permissive sharing: Regulated optional sharing of Union excise duties.
- Omitted in 2000: Deleted by the Eightieth Amendment.
- Unified pool: Replaced by the comprehensive Article 270 divisible pool.
5. Historical constitutional wording — not operative
6. Sources & Historical Assembly Deliberations
Assembly quotations are withheld until wording, dates, and attribution have been checked against the primary record.
- •Government of India (Legislative Department, Ministry of Law and Justice) • Part XII, Article 272, printed page 160 • Human source-link check pending
Primary PDF accessed and transcribed with AI assistance on 14 October 2026. Formatting and amendment annotation markers are omitted; operative wording is retained. This is not human legal review. Later amendments and commencement notifications have not been comprehensively checked.