Three legislations– Central GST (CGST), State GST (SGST) and integrated GST (iGST) — will have to be approved by the respective legislatures for nationwide rollout of the new indirect tax regime
New Delhi : Model legislations to implement the Goods and Services Tax are being prepared and will be put up for comments from stakeholders after Parliament approves the GST Constitution Amendment Bill, a tax department official said on Friday.
The government plans to implement the single rate GST, which would subsume central excise, service tax and other local levies, from April 1, 2016.
The three legislations — Central GST (CGST), State GST (SGST) and integrated GST (iGST) — will have to be approved by the respective legislatures for nationwide roll out of the single rate GST.
“The central and the state laws as soon as they are drafted, they will be put in public domain and the views of the trade and industry will be elicited,” Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) Member V S Krishnan said at a Ficci event here.
Krishnan said the draft would be put out once the Constitution Amendment Bill, which is pending in the Rajya Sabha, is passed. The Bill will have to be approved by 50 per cent of the states.
The Bill, which has been approved by the Lok Sabha, is being scrutinised by a Committee of Rajya Sabha. The Committee is likely to give its report to Parliament next week.
The CGST would be a Central law, the states would have to pass the their own legislation which will based on the model legislation being prepared by the Centre. States would also have to approve iGST, which will deal with the inter-state movement of goods and services.
Krishnan said that there could be a GST Secretariat like the Empowered Committee to facilitate consultation between the Centre and States on issues concerning GST.
“We need to create GST Sec in the states where the Centre and state officers can come together in consultative arrangements and provide an institutional basis to that,” he said.
It would aid communication between CBEC officers in the field, who would be implementing CGST, and the state’s commercial tax department, who would implement SGST.
MS, TCS, Infy, among others in race to build GST network
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New Delhi : Five IT companies, including Microsoft, TCS and Infosys, have bid for building the GST network across the country for smooth roll out of the new indirect tax regime.
“We have received five bids for building the GSTN system. We will finalise (the bidder) by the end of next month,” GST Network Chairman Navin Kumar said.
According to sources, the five companies which have bid for the project are TCS, Wipro, Infosys, Tech Mahindra and Microsoft.
The government plans to implement the single rate GST from April 1, 2016.
A strong technology backbone is essential for successful roll-out of single rate GST across the country.
GSTN is a company formed to connect databases of states with the Centre and provide the information technology (IT) infrastructure for seamless implementation of GST.
Kumar further said that registration on GSTN would start by January 31, to prepare for a smooth roll out by April 2016.
“For registration the target is to get it ready by January 31 so that there is two months time for testing. And payment and returns will follow months later, because the first return will be filed only in May,” he said.
GSTN would help in PAN-based (Permanent Account Number- based) registration of traders, besides filing of tax returns and payment system.
The Centre and the states have also agreed to equally share the costs incurred by GSTN. A sub-committee would decide on the sharing of the costs between the states.
For handling backend operations, 13 states have approached GSTN for creating the IT platform, while rest of the 17 states are developing IT network on their own.
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