GST portal goes live, GSTN software almost ready: GSTN Chairman Navin Kumar

NEW DELHI: India has initiated an enrolment drive for taxpayers under the goods and services tax (GST), in keeping with the April 1, 2017 rollout deadline for the new indirect tax system. A new portal for GST went live on Tuesday to enable easy countrywide enrolment of taxpayers. A state-wise schedule has also been put out for enrolment of existing payers of excise duty, service tax and state taxes.

The portal, www.gst.gov.in, has been rolled out by the GST Network that is readying the IT backbone for this new tax regime. Existing taxpayers of value added tax can start migrating from Tuesday, followed by service tax and excise.

Puducherry will lead the process of migration to the GST system. For service tax, registrant’s migration to GST will be from January 1, 2017 till January 31, 2017. Although the window will be kept open till January 31, 2017 for assesses who do not register before the specified dates, the government is keen that enrolment is completed before the deadline.

Basic information such as names and PAN from existing database of the income tax department has been collated by the GST Network and essential information such as place of business, nature of business, name of directors and bank accounts details needs to be fulfilled by the assessee. Experts say the government is moving in a fast lane on GST implementation and now it is industry’s turn to gear up.

“It is important for businesses to collate all required details for GST migration at the earliest,” PwC said in a note. “This is the first step taken by the government for launching the GST on the compliance side and we expect to see battery of steps in near future so that we can have a flawless launch,” said Nangia & Co in a note.