Goods and Service Tax – GST – By: – Pradeep Jain – Dated:- 5-10-2015 Last Replied Date:- 12-10-2015 – Introduction- Already so controversial bill of Goods and Service Tax (GST) had another controversy attached to it when The Empowered Committee (EC) of State Finance Ministers decided to incorporate Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN), a Section 25 (not-for-profit), non-Government, Private Limited Company to provide IT infrastructure for implementation of GST. The main objective associated with formation of GSTN was creation of database. It will keep record of all the assessees and would connect the databases of the centre and all the states thereby comprising a large amount of sensitive and critical information. Along with providing a common portal to all the assessees associated with GST, it would also prove to be a beneficial platform for all the stakeholders. In this piece of diction, the authors have tried to put a light on the pros and cons of privatization of GST Net
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job to look into technological needs for implementing GST. It is worth mentioning here that TAGUP was responsible for making recommendations in respect of five projects already identified at the time of announcing budget, 2010-11 while EG-IT was responsible to work upon GST network only. Based on the reports of these two groups, it was decided that:- NIU for GSTN should be incorporated as a non-government, not for profit (section 25), Private Limited Company registered under the Companies Act, 1956. Government s share in equity should be 49%; being 24.5% of Centre and 24.5% of State. Total private ownership should be 51%. No single private entity should hold more than 10% of equity. Thus, basically, the GSTN is to be in the hands of private sector with 51% of shares. The main concern- Arguments against privatization:- Everything relating to GSTN was not so agitating until it was revealed that 51% of the shareholding of GSTN would lie in the hands of private sector. The privatization o
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e major cause of concerns of people arguing against the privatization of GSTN. Going by the above arguments, it can be safely opined that such critical information relating to taxpayers must not be given in the hands of such private entities. Here, it would be appropriate to mention the concern raised by the Select Committee of Rajya Sabha which noted that Non-Government shareholding of GSTN is dominated by private banks. This was found undesirable because of two reasons: Firstly, public sector banks have more than 70% share in total credit lending of the country. Secondly, GSTN s work is of strategic importance to the country and the firm would be a repository of a lot of sensitive data on business entities across the country. The objections raised by the Committee are quite obvious and they simply cannot be ignored in the light of the fact that GSTN would be a database of almost every significant transaction being carried out in the economy. The logic behind private shareholding of G
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this stage, it must be noted that concerns had been raised even by the CBEC regarding ownership and security of such sensitive and confidential data in the dominion of private sector owned GSTN but it was later decided not to question the decision of the empowered committee. This concern was not considered before proceeding with the registration of GSTN, ignoring the fact that CBEC is the most important stakeholder in this transitive tax revolution. What induces more questions is that GSTN, being a private company, shall be out of the ambit of CAG. Considering the above arguments, it would not be wrong to question the security and confidentiality of the critical taxpayers database. Another concern which hits our mind is that- is this DIGITAL INDIA campaign all about? On one hand, all the government departments are being planned to be digitized, and on the other, the ownership of taxpayers database is being given in the hands of private players. What good shall emerge out of this campai
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upon the recommendations of TAGUP and EG-IT which had given their reports after in-depth research and a no. of rounds of discussions. The government departments in India are heading towards digitalization. A large no. of governmental projects are being developed within the department or have been outsourced to technological service providers, normally operating at small level. However, the outcomes from these projects have not been able to meet the requirements due to a no. of reasons like lack of financial resources, use of old technology, cost-related issues, lack of competent persons, etc. In order to overcome these defects and to take benefit of private super-specialized professionals, this step of privatization has been taken to assist the most important indirect tax reform ever. In order to derive benefit out of privatization of GSTN alongwith ensuring the data security and information leakage; Empowered Committee (EC) has suggested some measures which have been discussed here in
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age. Also, it was proposed to appoint a Chief Information Security officer on deputation by Government to look into the matters related to information security. EC also clarified that the audits of GSTN would be conducted by the independent auditors, including the professional personnel designated for carrying out technology reviews and giving suggestions thereupon. The above stated justifications were given by EC in respect of information protection mechanism while finalizing the model of GSTN. However, these are the least discussed in the GST galleries. Conclusion- While the idea of GSTN is an innovative one, the private ownership of the company has been a major cause of concern. Though EC has tried its best to justify the privatization of GSTN, yet, it is human nature to be threatened with every new reform until it gets settled. The rising talks about privatization of GSTN in the town indicate that this issue will agitate further. Thus, it seems better to avoid conflicts and give pe
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