TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
GSTN and Frontend Business Process on GST Portal
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....rect tax ecosystem so as to bring all the tax administrations (Centre, State and Union Territories) to the same level of IT maturity with uniform formats and interfaces for taxpayers and other external stakeholders. Besides, GST being a destination based tax, the inter-state trade of goods and services (IGST) would need a robust settlement mechanism amongst the States and the Centre. This is possible only when there is a strong IT Infrastructure and Service back bone which enables capture, processing and exchange of information amongst the stakeholders (including taxpayers, States and Central Government, Bank and RBI). To achieve these objectives GSTN was created. Q 3. What is the genesis of GSTN? Requirements of strong IT Infrastructure was discussed in the 4th meeting of 2010 of the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers held on 21/7/2010. In the said meeting the EC approved creation of an 'Empowered Group on IT Infrastructure for GST' (referred to as EG) under the chairmanship of Dr. Nandan Nilekani with Additional Secretary (Rev), Member (B&C) CBEC, DG (Systems), CBEC, FA Ministry of Finance, Member Secretary EC and five state commissioners of Trade Taxes (Maharasht....
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....ls of Government of India and States. However, professionals with sophisticated technology knowledge will be required to run this company independently, similar to NSDL which is working professionally and independently. EG also recommended a non-government company as that will have operational freedom. These recommendations were presented before the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers in its 3rd meeting of 2011 held on 19th August 2011 and in the 4th meeting of 2011 of the EC held on 14th Oct 2011. The proposal of the EG on IT infrastructure for GST regarding GSTN and formation of a not-for-profit section 25 company with the strategic control of the Government were approved by the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers (EC) in its meeting held on14.10.11. The note of Department of Revenue for setting up a Special Purpose Vehicle to be called Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN-SPV) on the lines mentioned above was considered by the Union Cabinet on 12th April 2012 and approved. The Union cabinet also approved the following: i. Suitable and willing non-government institutions will be identified and firmed up by the Ministry of Finance to invest in GSTN-SPV ....
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..... 143.96 Crores was released as Grant-In-Aid to GSTN out of Rs. 315 Crores approved by Govt of India. Out of the grant-in-aid received, only Rs. 62.11 Cr was spent during this period in setting of the Company and making it functional. The balance grant was returned to Govt. of India. During FY 2016-17, GSTN has got loan sanctioned from a commercial bank to meet expenditure over setting up the IT Platform to provide services to the Center and States through GST portal and developing the backend for 27 States and Union Territories. The Revenue model for GSTN has been approved by the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers under which user charges will be paid by the Centre and States/UTs equally on behalf of taxpayers and other stakeholders for availing services from the GST Portal. The user charges will be shared equally by the Centre and the States. The user charges for States will be apportioned amongst them based on number of registered taxpayers. Q 5. What services will be rendered by GSTN? Ans. GSTN will render the following services through the Common GST Portal: (a) Registration (including existing taxpayer migration, a process which began on 8th Nov 2016); (b)....
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.... registration to GSTN for eventual download by the taxpayer. Q 8. What is the role of Infosys in GSTN? Ans. GSTN has engaged M/S Infosys as a single Managed Service Provider (MSP) for the design, development and deployment of GST system, including all application software, tools and Infrastructure and for operating & maintaining the system for a period of 5 years from the Go-Live date. Q 9. What are the basic features of GST common portal? Ans. The GST portal (www.gst.gov.in ) is accessible over Internet (by Taxpayers and their CAs/Tax Advocates etc.) and Intranet by Tax Officials etc. The portal is going to be one single common portal for all GST related services e.g.- i. Tax payer registration (New, surrender, cancelation, amendment etc.); ii. Invoice upload, auto-drafting of Purchase register of buyer, GST Returns filing on stipulated dates for each type of return (GSTR [1, 2, 3, 5, 9.etc]; iii. Tax payment by creation of Challan and integration with agency Banks; iv. ITC and Cash Ledger and Liability Register; v. MIS reporting for tax payers, tax officials and other stakeholders; vi. BI/Analytics for Tax officials. Q 10. What is the concept of GST Eco-syst....
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....c. Q 13. What are the benefits to taxpayers in using the GSPs? Ans. At the outset it is clarified that all required functions under GST can be performed by a taxpayer at the GST portal. GSP is an additional channel being made available for performing some of the functions and use of their services is optional. Some of the specific solution(s) which could be offered by the GSPs to meet specific requirements of Taxpayers for GST compliance are given below: 1. Conversion of their current invoice format generated by their existing accounting software, which could be in csv, pdf, excel, word format, into GST compliant format. 2. Reconciliation of auto populated data from GST portal with their purchase register data, where purchase register data can be on excel, csv or in any proprietary database and uploaded data from GST format could be in json/csv. 3. Organization having various branches will need a way to upload branch wise invoices, as GST System will only provide one user-id/password for GST system access. An application having role based access and different view for different branches will be needed. 4. A company registered in multiple States may require unified view ....
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....data in Invoices as well as help supplier taxpayer in avoiding last minute rush of uploading returns on the last day. Q 18. Will GSTN provide tools for uploading invoice data on GST portal? Ans. Yes, GSTN will provide spreadsheet like tools (such as Microsoft Excel), free of cost, to taxpayers to enable them to compile invoice data in the same and generate files which can then be uploaded on GST portal. This will be an offline tool which can be used to input/capture invoice data without being online and then generate final files in compatible format for uploading to GST portal. Q 19. Will GSTN be providing mobile based Apps to view ledgers and other accounts? Ans. The GST portal is being designed in such a way that it can be seen on any smart phone. Thus ledgers like cash ledger, liability ledger, ITC ledger etc. can be seen on a mobile phone using compatible browsers. Q 20. Will GSTN provide separate user ID and password for GST Practitioner to enable them to work on behalf of their customers (Taxpayers) without requiring user ID and password of taxpayers, as happens today? Ans. Yes, GSTN will be providing separate user ID and Password to GST Practitioner to enable the....