Need help in understanding GST Compliances- Relax, Government planning to start facilitation centers managed by GST Suvidha Providers

As GST regime is set to usher in, opportunities for finance professionals are set to grow. Much on the lines of licensing TRP (Tax Return Preparers) for Income Tax returns, Government is planning to allow IT and financial services firms to be licensees for GST Suvidha Providers and extend specialized help to tax payers for complying with the upcoming Goods and Services tax regime.

This is considered very crucial for smooth implementation of GST in the country. As GST is set to replace existing system in just 5 months, many rules and processes are yet to be finalized. The law professionals, who are practicing in service tax and VAT laws, need to update themselves with GST Act. TO ensure that assessees don’t suffer for want of expert legal professionals, Government plans to allow IT/ITeS/BFSI companies to become part of the new tax structure has been laid out by Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN), so as to setup infrastructure to provide government and tax payers the required IT backbone for smooth implementation of GST.

Such IT/ITES/BFSI (Banking, Financial services and Insurance) companies would be known as GSPs akin to TRPs in Income Tax

Apart from other services, these GSPs would provide services of sales and purchase return preparation, ledgers for sales/purchases, reconciliation of sales with purchase, or goods consumed wrt to sales made, reconciliation of input credit claimed with the returns filed by the sellers. The GSPs system would be connected with official GST system to enable uploading of the data.

It will not be mandatory for a tax payer to avail of services of GSP; third parties would also be allowed to develop independent IT applications, which any assesse would be free to use. Whether an assesse uses GSP’s service or a third party application, it would be able to access G2B (Government to Business) portal to avail of facilities like converting their purchase/sales register data in GST compliant format, integration of their accounting packages with GST System.

Criteria for being GSP- For an entity to have license as GSP, it would need to have a paid up capital of at least Rs 5 crore and to have an average turnover of at least Rs 10 crore during last three financial years.

Last Date of Registration- The interested parties would need to register themselves with GSTN portal on or before 15 October 2016.

As first lot of GSP are allowed and their working monitored, Government would soon allow date for further enrollment as GSPs