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Even as the rollout of GST (Goods and Services Tax) faces hiccups, a team led by Mr Nandan Nilekani, former Infosys Technologies Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), is doing a pilot in 11 States to test and build an information technology backbone for the unified tax regime.
“The pilot will be completed in three-four months. We will study feedback from all participant States before revising it and further testing it in other States,” a senior official, who was here to attend a meeting of Commercial Taxes Commissioners of all States on Tuesday, said.
The Indian IT industry waits as the panel works on the IT backbone.
“The IT component in GST will throw a great opportunity for the industry,” Mr A.S. Murty, Chief Technology Officer of Mahindra Satyam, said.
work on basic
Though the Centre and States are yet to come to terms on several knotty issues such as revenue sharing and rates of taxation, the Empowered group on IT infrastructure on GST, headed by Mr Nilekani, began its work on the basics of the IT backbone.
For one, they found consensus with regard to a portal that would act as a common place for registration, filing returns, payments and providing information related to rules and regulations.
Information technology is going to play a major role in the implementation of GST as it grapples with inter-State flow of funds, goods and services in and out of several states. It would require stakeholders to have a PAN-based taxpayer identification number.
The Goods and Services Tax Network would factor in the interests of small tax payers, corporate tax payers, State and Central tax authorities, Reserve Bank of India, banks and Comptroller and Auditor General.
July 18 meet
Meanwhile, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, Union Finance Minister, would meet the Finance Ministers of all States on July 18 in New Delhi to discuss challenges with regard to GST.
The same day, the State Finance Ministers would hold a separate meeting to name a successor for Mr Asim Dasgupta, the former Finance Minister of West Bengal, as Chairman of the Empowered Committee (on GST) of State Finance Ministers.
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