Five top information technology companies have bid for building the common IT portal and backbone for the dual Goods and Services Tax (GST) system in the country.

It is reliably learnt that Infosys, TCS, Wipro and Tech Mahindra, have bid for this prestigious Union Government project to implement the single-rate GST, which would subsume central excise, service tax and other local levies, from April 1, 2016. According to PTI, the fifth company is Microsoft.

Navin Kumar, chief of Goods and Services Tax Network — a non-profit registered as a private company and mandated to provide shared IT infrastructure and services to the Centre, the State governments and taxpayers for implementation of GST — declined to name the bidders but only said the contract would be awarded next month.

Kumar was speaking to some newspersons on the sidelines of an interactive session on GST, organised by FICCI here on Friday.

Kumar said GST implementation needs a strong IT infra and services backbone that can capture, process and exchange information for and among the stakeholders (the Centre, States, the RBI and tax-payers).

GSTN would help in Permanent Account Number- based registration of traders, besides filing of tax returns and facilitate payment. Kumar said GSTN will by January-end next year put in place the system for registration of dealers. All existing VAT/service tax/central excise dealer data will be migrated to the GST system. Each dealer will get a unique ID (GSTIN).

In the subsequent months, the enabling system for payment of taxes and electronic filing of returns will be introduced, Kumar said.

The Centre and the States have agreed to equally share the cost incurred by GSTN. A sub-committee would decide on the sharing of the costs by the States.

13 States seek help Kumar said 13 States, including Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi, Odisha and the five North-East States, have sought GSTN’s help in building the IT backbone. “The other States have decided to do this (IT backbone) on their own,” Kumar added.

srivats.kr@thehindu.co.in

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