The country’s supreme audit body has questioned the preparedness of states to roll out the goods and services tax (GST), amid hectic parleys to build a consensus on the implementation of this crucial indirect tax reform from the next fiscal year.
There are several deficiencies in the value-added tax (VAT) regime, says the comptroller and auditor general of India (CAG) in a extensive study based on audits of state tax administrations. “We found that automation was in a nascent stage in all states except Kerala,” the CAG says in a report, ‘Implementation of VAT in India—lessons for transition to GST’. A smooth VAT is considered an absolute must for a successful GST regime.“It was known that VAT will eventually lead to GST and a common software developed on a common platform across states would be a precursor for this shift,” says the study.
Varying levels of automation and computerisation aside, the lack of a common platform is another big problem, given the paucity of time. Jharkhand and Bihar, for instance, use web-based VAT application software to register dealers, process and monitor returns, but the software is yet to provide and integrated platform for IT-enabled processing of returns. Other states have developed their own information systems, which are yet to stabilise.
“Disparate efforts in automation led to multiplicity of efforts and resource allocation, but more importantly the outputs generated from these silos have not evolved a common platform for integration,” the study says. Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi also highlighted the lack of preparedness and cautioned against rushing into rolling out the new indirect tax regime.“BJP’s stand is very clear. The GST dream will not get fulfilled till the time you link all the taxpayers in the country with an IT network,” said Mr Modi.
Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi also raised concerns in a letter to Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee. The industry has also cautioned against a hasty rollout. “It may be in fitness of things to postpone the rollout by a few months to have a flawless GST rather than to have a partial one in haste,” said industry chamber FICCI in a recent paper on GST. The importance of systems integration comes across clearly in the CAG study, which has revealed tax evasion amounting to Rs 873 crore from just 2,614 returns in 15 states.
This is a Good and TImely observation from CAG and it is very True that IF we want perfect results by using I.T. infrastructure than it must be streamlined and should be uniformi else it is of no use if does not provides required data .Moreover the Tax evasion of 873 Crores is a great Job done by CAG but if a little amount of this would have been used to uniformize the I.T softwares used in each states . This would not be the case.As is is generally accepted principal that vaccinization is better than cure.
So it is really very important to regularize the existing system than to implement the new one to avil provpre benefit of IT.We can take eg of Income Tax dept which had made optimum use of I.T. and had Great Results and control by implementing the IT infrastructure.
The observations of CAG are timely. Since the GST will be completely IT driven, it is essential to put the IT infrastructure in place before the roll out of GST so as to facilitate smooth transition. This may lead to a few months of delay but it is worthwhile. Stakeholders too require time to familiarise themselves with the new system. We should aim for a perfect system at one go.