IT Infrastructure for GST implementation

♤ Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN): For the implementation of GST in the country, the Central and State Governments have jointly registered GSTN as a not-for-profit, non- Government Company to provide shared IT infrastructure and services to Central and State Governments, tax payers and other stakeholders. The known authorized capital of GSTN is Rs. 10 crore (US$1.6 million) in which Central Government holds 24.5 percent of shares while the state government holds 24.5 percent and rest with private banking firms.

♤ The key objectives of GSTN are to provide a standard and uniform interface to the taxpayers, and shared infrastructure and services to Central and State/UT governments. GSTN is working on developing a state-of-the-art comprehensive IT infrastructure including the common GST portal providing frontend services of registration, returns and payments to all taxpayers, as well as the backend IT modules for certain States that include processing of returns, registrations, audits, assessments, appeals, etc.

♤ Project Saksham: It is a New Indirect Tax Network (Systems Integration) of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC). It will help in implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) by integrating CBEC’s IT system with GSTN. It will also help in extension of Indian Customs’ Single Window Interface for Facilitating Trade (SWIFT).

♤ All States, accounting authorities, RBI and banks, are also preparing their IT infrastructure for the administration of GST.

♤ There would no manual filing of returns. All taxes can be paid online. All mis-matched returns would be auto-generated, and there would be no need for manual interventions. Most returns would be self-assessed.