GSTN - IT Strategy for GST

Government has come up with an IT Strategy for Implementation of GST. This Post is 1st of the 3 post to state this Strategy.

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Desirable features of Goods & Service Tax Network (GSTN)

Simplicity for taxpayers: The process of filing of tax returns and payment of tax should be simple and uniform and should be independent of taxpayer’s location and size of business. In addition, the compliance process should not place any undue burden on the taxpayer and should be an integral part of his business process.

Respect autonomy of states: The design of the IT system should respect the constitutional autonomy of the states. Several business processes will be re-engineered as a new IT system for GST is put into place. There should be no dilution of the autonomy of states as a result of the IT system, or the re-engineering. On the contrary, it should strengthen the autonomy of states. This is a key factor in the design of the IT system presented in the rest of this document.

Uniformity of policy administration: The business processes surrounding GST need to be standardized. Uniformity of policy administration across states and centre will lead to a better taxpayer experience, and cut down costs of compliance as well as tax administration.

Enable digitization and automation of the whole chain: All the business processes surrounding GST should be automated to the extent possible, and all documents processed electronically. This will lead to faster processing and reconciliation of tax information and enable risk based scrutiny by tax authorities. For small taxpayers, facilitation centres can be set up to ease the migration.

Reduce leakages: A fully electronic GST can dramatically increase tax collections by reducing leakages. Tools such as matching the input tax credit, data mining and pattern detection will deter tax evasion and thus increase collections.

Leverage existing investments: Existing IT investments of states should be leveraged. The Mission Mode Project on Commercial Tax should be aligned with the GST implementation going forward.

Stakeholders

Small taxpayers: Much of the economic activity in India is concentrated among small taxpayers. They may not have the skill or the resources to effectively migrate to GST. Thus, adequate preparations must be done to ensure smooth migration for small taxpayers to GST. This includes extensive consultations, setting up of facilitation centres, education and training.

Corporate taxpayers: Corporate taxpayers may operate across various states and typically have sophisticated IT systems for accounting, e-filing returns, payments etc. Common file formats and message specifications should be released early to allow IT vendors that provide software to corporate taxpayers to modify and release updated versions with GST support.

State tax authorities: The state tax authorities would be responsible for collecting SGST. Common file formats, interfaces, and policy administration will enable accurate and timely assessment, and risk-based investigations resulting in enhanced productivity and revenues.

CBEC: CBEC would be responsible for collecting CGST and IGST. Common file formats, interfaces, and policy administration will increase the productivity of CBEC. It will allow for accurate and timely assessment, risk-based investigations and facilitate IGST settlement by Centre at agreed time intervals.

RBI: The Reserve Bank of India will facilitate the interface with various banks to facilitate movement of states’ and center’s funds. The processes of funds settlements and documentary compliance are independent.

Banks: Banks will accept duty from the taxpayers and process challans. All tax collections (whether physical or electronic) will happen at bank branches, or through the banks’ IT systems. Banks will route the tax collected to the concerned authorities through the RBI channel.

Other Stakeholders include CAG, GSTN, TRPs and facilitation agencies.

Workflows

The following three processes constitute the most important workflows of the GST administration and would be covered in the first phase:

Registration: A unique ID is necessary to identify each taxpayer. The PAN based ID should be common to both the states and the centre. A common PAN-based taxpayer registration has several benefits including a unified view of taxpayers for all tax authorities. A PAN based registration system has already been implemented in CBEC and several states are also capturing PAN data.

Returns: Both, the states and centre require taxpayers to file periodic returns to assess whether the taxpayers have computed, collected, and deposited their taxes correctly. ITC credit can also be verified on the basis of the returns filed and revenues reconciled against challan data from banks.

Challans: Challans are the payment instruments used by taxpayers to actually pay their taxes. Challans are deposited at collecting banks and are forwarded by them to the tax administrations.

IGST: Under GST, inter-state trade will be leviable to IGST. Under IGST, the tax paid by the selling dealer in the exporting state will be available as ITC to the purchasing dealer in the importing state. This requires verification of ITC claims and transfer of funds from one state to another. Further, in an interstate business to consumer transaction, tax collected in one state has to be transferred to another state as finalized by the business processes. Thus, periodic inter-state settlement is required.

In addition, there are several other workflows such as processing refunds, taxpayer audits, and appeals. It is reiterated that the core services envisaged through common portal are limited to registration, payments and returns in the first phase. Other value added services will be added subsequently based on the needs of the Stakeholders. The IT infrastructure should be designed taking into account all stakeholders, and all related workflows.

Apart from this, there are other important topics such as:

Solution Architecture - A common GST portal, Basic solution architecture, Information Flow, Funds flow
Tax booster - Tax computation and accounting and boosting tax collection

These are separately stated in other posts.

Source : IT Strategy for GST version 0.85

Download Full IT Strategy for GST in PDF