To help with the roll-out of the goods and services tax (GST), the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Wednesday approved a new indirect tax network for systems integration of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC).
Known as Project Saksham, it has a total project cost of ₹2,256 crore, which will be incurred over a period of seven years.
Under the project, the CBEC’s existing IT systems will be integrated with the GST Network. This is required for processing of registration, payment and returns data sent by GSTN systems to CBEC, as well as act as a front-end for other modules such as audit, appeals, investigation.
The exercise is also expected to help the indirect tax department cater to the larger number of taxpayers when GST rolls out from April 1, 2017. According to official estimates, the number of taxpayers under various indirect tax laws administered by CBEC is about 36 lakh at present, and will nearly double to 65 lakh after the introduction of GST.
“It will help in implementation of GST, extension of the Indian Customs Single Window Interface for Facilitating Trade and other taxpayer-friendly initiatives under Digital India and ease of doing business,” said an official release.