What is GSP?
For the proper implementation of the Goods and Services Tax from July 1st, 2017, central and state governments, state tax departments and CBEC (Central Board of Excise and Custom), taxpayers and consultants, banks together with the RBI and the GSTN or the IT platform provider, need to make a collective effort. This GSTN or Goods and Services Tax Network refer to a public private partnership which is non profit. It has been created for providing the services and infrastructure to taxpayers, and both state and central governments for implementing GST properly.
The GSP therefore allows the taxpayers to carry out provisions of GST vis-à-vis an online platform. It helps the taxpayer to adhere to the GST laws through an online system and has been officially approved by the government. It will allow the taxpayers to file for the returns online. The GSP will be under the government control and it will run according to the terms of a MoU. An agreement has been signed to the effect between the GSP and GSTN. In the GSP, users will have to provide the relevant details; returns will get calculated automatically. The main focus of this system is to get details from the taxpayer to be able to translate these into returns. The GST returns will be then filed on behalf of taxpayers with the GSTN through this GSP.
The GSTN has been primarily established for developing and maintaining the IT infrastructure for the GST. It is therefore in line with the aspirations for a Digital India and a paper-less tax compliance system which will streamline business tasks. Taxpayers will now file their returns through the ASP and GSP modes. Both may be viewed as third party applications and they will charge costs from taxpayers for this task. As far as taxpayers are concerned, it will save them a lot of time and money, reducing paperwork hassles. Even without knowledge of taxes, an individual taxpayer can comfortably file returns. All he needs to do is provide the required information and returns are automatically calculated.
