NEW DELHI, June 10: The Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) has held a meeting with all the GST Suvidha Providers (GSPs) at their office in Aero City, here to assess readiness for GST roll-out from July 1, 2017.
During the meeting, the GSPs advised to continue visiting the GSP ecosystem webpage on the GSTN website for all information, latest updates and guidelines.
There are 34 GSPs that have been selected by the GSTN to provide additional channel of filing returns and other compliances related to GST.
The GSPs are expected to help large businesses with complex and varied internal processes to comply with the GST regime that becomes effective from July 1, 2017.
The GSTN presented the timelines of release of updated specifications of Application Programming Interface (APIs) for the new GST registration forms, to be applicable from the July 1.
The API specifications will be released in a staggered manner for all the GSPs and their partner Application Software Providers (ASPs), so that they can study and analyse the same for making changes in their software developed on old design of returns.
Subsequent to publishing of the specifications, the GSTN will also make available live APIs on the sandbox for testing of the codes that the GSPs will modify/develop.
The dates for the release of specifications and Live APIs for various returns for testing/integration were communicated to all the GSPs.
The GSTN also published and explained the method and manner in which the GSPs would be able to integrate with the GST System, to be able to submit all the return forms on behalf of their clients and tax payers.
The requirement of GSPs being secure and in turn ensuring security of the GST system was also highlighted and emphasised. The GSPs were told that they must have their systems audited, as per the prevailing ISO standard on security from one of the auditors on the panel of CERT-IN, before they connect with and start pushing data into the GST System.
For the convenience of taxpayers, the GSTN has come-up with an Offline Tool, where data on invoices (business to business), exports and supplies to consumers, which are required to create GSTR-1 (Outward Supply Return), can be entered in an excel sheet in offline mode (without being connected to the Internet).
At desired interval, the tool can be run to upload all such data on the portal. Only while uploading the data on GST portal, Internet connectivity will be required. The Offline tool will be provided free of cost and taxpayers will be able to download it from the GST portal (www.gst.gov.in) from the last week of June.
The GSTN will release the format of Excel, in which businesses will start maintaining the data from July 1 for using the free offline tool for uploading the invoice data and other return data.
Taxpayers using offline tool will not require services of any GSP. Similarly, those having small number of business to business invoices, like retailers and small traders, can do the data entry on portal itself and they will also not require the services of GSPs.
The meeting was chaired by Naveen Kumar, Chairman, GSTN, who heard and assessed the preparations of GSPs. Of the 34 GSPs, representatives of 30 GSPs were present physically and two attended via conference call. (UNI)
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