GSTN COMMON PORTAL – SALIENT FEATURES (PART-II)

[Dr. Sanjiv Agarwal]

Services undertaken on common GST portal

The GSTN common portal can be accessed over internet by taxpayers including  their consultants (CAs, advocates etc.). Departmental officers can access the same over intranet. The common web portal will provide services in relation to all GST related services such as –

1. Tax payer registration (New, surrender, cancellation, etc.);
2.  Invoices upload, auto-drafting of Purchase register of buyer, Periodic GST Returns filing;
3. Tax payment including integration with agency banks;
4.  ITC and Cash Ledger and Liability Register;
5. MIS reporting for tax payers, tax officials and other stakeholders;
6. BI Analytics for tax officials.

Functions  which can be carried out by tax officers using GST common portal

Tax officers can use the GSTN system for the following back-end functions :

• Approval/rejection for enrollment/registration of taxpayers;
• Tax administration of state tax –

• Assessment
•  Audit
• Refund
• Appeal
• Investigation

• MIS and other functions.

Uploading of invoices on GSTN system

GSTN will not generate any new identification. The combination of supplier’s GSTIN, Invoice No. and financial year with HSN/SAC Code will make each line unique.

GST Portal will have functionality to take invoice data on any time basis. The earlier one uploads, better it is, as it will get reflected to the receiver who can see the same in his/her purchase register.

GSTN will provide spreadsheet (like Microsoft Excel) like tools free of cost to taxpayers to enable them to compile invoice data in the same and upload invoice data in one go. This will be an offline tool which can be used to inputs invoice data without being online and then upload the invoice data in one go for few hundred invoices.

GSTN provides 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.

Interface System between GSTN and the States/CBEC

In GST regime, while taxpayer facing core services of applying for registration, uploading of invoices, filing of return, making tax payments shall be hosted by GST System, all the statutory functions (such as approval of registration, assessment of return, conducting investigation and audit etc.) shall be conducted by the tax authorities of States and Central governments.

Thus, the GST Portal services are being provided by GSTN and the backend modules is developed by states and Central Government themselves.

GST Suvidha Provider (GSP) under the GSTN system

GST System has provided a GST portal for taxpayers to access the GST System and do all the GST compliance activities. But there are wide variety of tax payers (SME, Large Enterprise, Micro Enterprise etc.) which requires different kind of facilities like converting their purchase/sales register data in GST compliant format, Integration of their Accounting Packages/ERP with GST System etc., various kind of dashboards to view Matched/Mismatched ITC claims, Tax liability, Filing status etc.

As invoice level filing is required, large organizations require an automated way to interact with GST system as it is practically impossible for them to upload large number of invoices through a web portal. In the said direction, an eco- system is required, which can help such taxpayers in GST compliance.

As Tax payer convenience will be the key to success of GST regime, this eco-system will also provide Tax payer options of using third party applications, which can provide different kind of interfaces on desktop/mobile for them to be GST compliant.

All above reasons require an eco-system of third party service providers, who have access to GST System and capability to develop such applications. These service providers have been given a generic name, GST Suvidha Providers or GSP.

GSTN will be providing separate user ID and Password to GST Practitioner to enable them to work on behalf of their clients without asking for their user ID and passwords. They will be able to do all the work on behalf of taxpayers as allowed under GST law.

Role of GST Suvidha Providers (GSP)

GSP is developing applications having features like return filing, reconciliation of purchase register data with auto populated data for acceptance / rejection  / Modification, dashboards for taxpayers for quick monitoring of GST compliance activities. they may also provide role based access to divide various GST related activities like uploading invoice, filing returns etc., among different set of users inside a company (medium or large companies will need it), Applications for Tax Professional to manage their client’s GST compliance activities, Integration of  accounting packages/ERP with GST System, etc.

Benefits to taxpayers by using the services of GSP

While 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 invoice format generated by their  accounting software, which could be in CSV, PDF, EXCEL, WORD , 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 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 require unified view of all branches in one screen.
5. GST professionals need some specific applications to manage and undertake GST compliance activities for their client Taxpayers from one dashboard, etc.

Above are just a few illustrations. There are many more requirements of different sets of Tax payers. These requirements of taxpayers are met by GSPs.

Change of GST practitioner

A taxpayer may choose a different GST Practitioner by simply unselecting the previous one and then choosing a new GST Practitioner on the GST portal.

Security measures of GSTN

GST Systems project has incorporated state of art security framework for data and service security. Besides high end firewalls, intrusion detection, data encryption at rest as well as in motion, complete audit trail, tamper proofing using consistent hashing algorithms, OS and host hardening etc., GSTN is also establishing a primary and secondary Security Operations Command & Control center, which will proactively monitor and protect malicious attack in real time. GSTN is also ensuring secure coding practices through continuous scanning of source code & libraries being used in GST system to protect against commonly known and unknown threats.

GST systems project has incorporated state of art security framework for data and service security. Besides high end firewalls, intrusion detection, data encryption at rest as well as in motion, complete audit trail, tamper proofing using consistent hashing algorithms, OS and host hardening etc., GSTN is also establishing a primary and secondary Security Operations Command & Control center, which will proactively monitor and protect malicious attack in real time. GSTN is also ensuring secure coding practices through continuous scanning of source code and libraries being used in GST system to protect against commonly known and unknown threats.

(Concluded )