IT, financial services cos can become GST Suvidha Providers

IT and financial services firms can become GST Suvidha Providers and extend specialised help to tax payers for complying with the upcoming Goods and Services tax regime.
The framework that will permit IT/ITeS/BFSI companies to become part of the new tax structure has been laid out by Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN), a company which will provide government and tax payers the required IT backbone for smooth implementation of GST.
GSTN Chairman Navin Kumar today announced the completion of policy formulation and laying out of implementation framework for IT/ITES/BFSI (Banking, Financial services and Insurance) companies to become GSPs.
"It is expected that the GSPs will provide the tax payers services for maintaining their individual business ledgers (sales and purchase ledger) and other value added services such as automatic reconciliation of entries in their purchase register with data in their form GSTR-2," GSTN said.

Kumar said the GSP developed apps will connect with the GST system via secure GST system.
"Tax payers' convenience will be a key factor in success of GST regime. The tax payer should have a choice to use third party applications which can provide varied interfaces on desktops, laptops and mobiles and can connect with GST system," he said.

The companies which would be eligible to act as GSPs should have a paid up capital of at least Rs 5 crore and have an average turnover of at least Rs 10 crore during last three financial years.
Interested organisations can register in the GSTN portal by October 15 by providing details in the registration form.

"After stabilisation of the first batch of GSPs, more applicants (organisations) will be considered for GSP, out of those applicants who register themselves now," GSTN said.
While the GST System will have a G2B (Government to Business) portal for taxpayers to access the GST System, there will be a wide variety of tax payers who will require facilities like converting their purchase/sales register data in GST compliant format, integration of their accounting packages with GST System.
"Similarly, the specific needs of an industry or trade could be met by GSP. In short, the GSP can help the taxpayers in GST compliance through their innovative solutions," GSTN said.