GSTN COMMON PORTAL – SALIENT FEATURES (PART-I)

Statutory Provisions

Section 146 of the CGST Act, 2017 provides for 'Common Portal' as follows :

'The Government may, on the recommendations of the Council, notify the Common Goods and Services Tax Electronic Portal for facilitating registration, payment of tax, furnishing of returns, computation and settlement of integrated tax, electronic way bill and for carrying out such other functions and for such purposes as may be prescribed.'

Central Government has vide Notification No.4/2017 Central Tax dated 19.06.2017 notified www.gst.gov.in as the common GST electronic portal. 'www.gst.gov.in' means the website managed by the Goods and Service Tax Network (GSTN), a company incorporated under section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013.

 Meaning of Common Portal

The 'Common Portal' for the purpose of GST shall:

• be notified by Government
• be an electronic portal, and
• facilitate specified functions

It shall be notified on recommendation of the GST Council.

Vide Notification No. 4/2017-Central Tax dated 19.06.2017, GSTN managed website, www. gst.gov.in, has been notified as common portal.

Functions performed by Common Portal

As per section 146, common electronic portal shall facilitate:

1. registration
2. payment of tax
3. furnishing of return
4. computation & settlement of integrated tax
5. electronic way bill, and
6. carrying out such other functions as may be prescribed.

GSTN based on Information Technology network

Well-designed and well-functioning Information Technology (IT) infrastructure facility would be a pre-condition and pre-requisite for smooth administration of taxpayers, processing of returns, controlling collections, making refunds, auditing taxpayers, levying penalties etc. in the GST regime. On the IT front, all stakeholders have  agreed for a common PAN-based taxpayer ID, a common return, and a common challan for tax payment and therefore a common portal providing three core services (registration, returns and payments) would ease compliance. Further, the IT infrastructure and unified tax credit clearing mechanism will be put in place.

 What is GST Network (GSTN)

The GSTN is the comprehensive back-end infrastructure network for the management of tax data and reporting of the GST.

GSTN was incorporated on 28 March 2013 under Section 25 of the Companies Act, 1956 (as a non-Government, not-for-profit, private limited company) promoted jointly by Central and State governments. GSTN is incorporated as a special purpose vehicle to set up IT backbone for GST. The stake of Government and other non-government institutions in GSTN is as under:

• Government of India -24.5%,
• State Governments -24.5%, and
• Non-Government Institutions -51%

GTSN has a self-sustaining revenue model, based on levy of user charges on tax payers and tax authorities availing its services. The GSTN will provide a front end portal to administer the Inter-State Taxation (IGST). The above network will work as a clearing house mechanism which will pool all the information about taxes levied on  the Inter-State transactions and provide data on the amounts to be transferred to the destination state for ensuring seamless input tax credit.

Responsibilities entrusted to GSTN

GSTN has been entrusted with the responsibility to develop, operate and maintain a common GST portal which would provide a common and shared IT infrastructure between Central and State Governments, Banks, CBEC, Reserve Bank of India etc. For the purpose of simplicity for taxpayer and uniformity of tax administration, it is also decided to have digitization of all documents and automation of related processes such as common PAN-based registration; common standardized return for all taxes (with different account heads for CGST, SGST, IGST) etc. Each tax authority will have full flexibility in using this data for in-house automation, integration, and enforcement.

Objectives of GSTN

GSTN has the following objectives –

• Integration of the common GST Portal with the  tax administration systems of the Central / State governments and other stakeholders.
• Provide common PAN based registration, enable returns filing and payment processing for all states on a shared platform.
• Facilitation, implementation and set standards for providing services to the taxpayer through common GST portal to State Governments and other stake holders;
• Build efficient and convenient interfaces between with tax payers to increase tax compliance;
• Carry out research, study best practices and provide training to the stakeholders.

GSTN system’s interface with various stakeholders

There are multiple stakeholders in GST system, viz -

1. Tax payers
2. CAs/Tax Advocates/ TRPs
3. Banks/ RBI
4. GST Council
5. CBEC/State Tax Authorities
6. Help-desk
7. CAG
8. CGA
9. 3rd Party Application developers
10. Aadhaar/ MCA21/CBDT

The GST portal is direct, browser-based interface for taxpayers and tax officials to access GST services. However, the GST system is designed on open Application Programming Interface (APIs) which provides platform-independent interfaces to systems at other model-1 State /UT Commercial tax departments, central tax authorities, Agency banks, RBI, CAG, CGA and other stakeholders in GST systems.

Concept of GST eco-system

A common GST system will provide linkage to all State/UT Commercial Tax departments, Central Tax authorities, Taxpayers, Banks and other stakeholders. The eco-system consists of all stakeholders starting from taxpayer to tax professional to tax officials to GST portal to Banks to accounting authorities. The diagram given below depicts the whole GST eco-system.

Services rendered by GSTN to various stakeholders

Common GST portal managed by GSTN provides the following service , viz.,

1. Registration (including existing taxpayer master migration and issue of PAN based registration number);
2. Payment management including payment gateways and integration with banking systems;
3. Return filing and processing;
4. Taxpayer management, including account management, notifications, information, and status tracking;
5. Tax authority account and ledger management;
6. Computation of settlement (including IGST settlement) between the Centre and States; Clearing house for IGST;
7. Processing and reconciliation of GST on import and integration with EDI systems of Customs;
8. MIS including need based information and business intelligence;
9. Maintenance of interfaces between the Common GST Portal and tax administration systems;
10. Provide training to stakeholders;
11. Provide Analytics and Business Intelligence to tax authorities; and
12. Carry out research, study best practices and provide training to the stakeholders.

Functions performed by taxpayers using GST Portal

Following functions can be performed by taxpayers while using GSTN portal -

• Application for registration as taxpayer and profile management;
• Payment of taxes, including penalties and interest;
• Uploading of Invoice data
• Filing returns / annual statements;
• Status review of return / tax ledger / cash ledger

(To be continued.......)