GST is an individual tax on the supply of goods and services, directly from the manufacturer to the consumer. Credits of input taxes spent at each stage will be available in the following stage of value addition, which makes GST fundamentally a tax only on value addition at every stage. The last consumer will hence bear only the GST rated by the last dealer in the supply chain, with set-off benefits at all the previous stages.

GSTN stands for Goods and Service Tax Network (GSTN). A Special Purpose Vehicle known as the GSTN has been established to cater to the requirements of GST. The GSTN shall perform shared IT support and services to Central 14 15 and State Governments, taxpayers, and other stakeholders for the implementation of GST. The purposes of the GSTN would, inter alia, incorporate: (i) Facilitating registration; (ii) Assisting the returns to Central and State authorities; (iii) Calculation and settlement of IGST; (iv) Matching of tax payment features with banking network; (v) Presenting various MIS reports to the Central and the State Governments based on the taxpayer return knowledge; (vi) Presenting analysis of taxpayers’ profile; and (vii) Managing the comparable engine for coordinating, withdrawal and reclaim of an input tax credit. The GSTN is acquiring a common GST portal and administrations for registration, payment, return, and MIS/ reports. The GSTN would also be combining the common GST portal with the current tax administration IT systems and would be developing interfaces for taxpayers. Further, the GSTN is developing back-end modules like assessment, review, refund, appeal, etc. for 19 States and UTs (Model II States). The CBEC and Model I States (15 States) are themselves growing their GST back-end methods. The mixture of the GST front-end system with back-end systems will have to be developed and tested well in advance for doing the transition smooth.