STATE FINANCE MINISTER HEAD TO EUROPE.

Despite not agreeing with the proposed GST roll out 20 state finance ministry going to Europe to study the indirect tax regime on September 7, 2011. They would fly to Paris & Spain to study how GST works. They would then visit Brussels (Belgium) and, Luxembourg, where the central focus is going to be on dispute resolution.

In several states such as Uttrakhand , Assam, Meghalaya and Manipur . The chief minister are in-charge of the finance portfolio and have disputed others to go for the study to, three sub groups on legistalation, central  GST and state GST have been asked to submit their reports at the earliest.

While it is unlikely that GST would be implemented from April the latest in a series of missed deadlines, state have been asked to gear up for implementing an information technology network that will help plug leakages, States are expected to move to the new IT network even if GST is not implemented as they hope to improve their VAT collection. A pilot run in Maharastra has shown that the state has lost around Rs. 1,000 crore through leakages. Now 200 hundreds traders each in 11 states would move to the pilot stage to test the network.

The biggest advantage is that you can cross check the data for the seller and buyer who may be in different state and check if there has been any tax evasion at the movement cross verification for inter state transaction is difficult

GST rollout planning advances with study visits and IT pilot to strengthen inter state tax verification and reduce evasion. State finance ministers will study European indirect tax systems to inform a proposed GST, with three subgroups preparing reports on legislation, central GST, and state GST. Concurrently, states are to implement an information-technology network to curb revenue leakages and enable cross-verification of seller and buyer data for inter state transactions; a pilot revealed significant losses and wider pilot testing across multiple states is planned to assess the system before GST implementation.