Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced sweeping changes to the GST rates on September 3. However, I think the rate for software services (HSN 99831) will remain unchanged at 18%. This is a bummer because every time I renew my WordPress.com site or purchase software over the internet in rupees, the total cost increases by almost a fifth.

The disappointment is compounded by the fact that WordPress.com and many other software service providers provide adjusted rates for users in India in order to offset the country's lower purchasing power per capita. For example, the lowest WordPress and Ghost plans by WordPress.com and MagicPages.co, respectively, cost $4 and $12 a month. But for users in India, the WordPress.com plan costs Rs 200 a month while MagicPages.co offers a Rs 450 per month plan, both with the same feature set — a big difference. The 18% GST however wipes out some, not all, of these gains.

Paying for software services over the internet when they're billed in dollars rather than rupees isn't much different. While GST doesn't apply, the rupee-to-dollar rate has become abysmal. [Checks] Rs 88.14 to the dollar at 11 am. Ugh.

I also hoped for a GST rate cut on software services because if content management software in particular becomes more affordable, more people would be able to publish on the internet.