India’s $2.2 trillion economy may be elephantine, but it made a sharp turn on 1 July through a massive reform of its complex taxation system. A new and unified tax, GST (Goods and Service Tax) replaced hundreds of overlapping and cascading ones at the central and state level. It is expected to bring 25% more businesses under the tax net and provide a 4.2% boost to the country’s GDP. Of the 8 million businesses that already paid taxes, about 5 million have migrated to the new GST and are bracing themselves now for the most important GST event— filing returns.
Work-in-Progress
India’s too-big-to-fail GST infrastructure
The technology that powers Goods and Services Tax filing cannot afford to falter. But as businesses queue up to upload millions of returns there is a cloud of uncertainty on what to expect
GSTN’s flip-flops affect software makers' ability to build solutions on time for which businesses are paying them
An unprepared technology platform impacts timely filing of tax returns. That leads to working capital issues for companies
For a country that boasts of having IT service chops, building the GST infrastructure was its crowning glory moment
GSTN is an unenviable position as the inordinate amount of changes in the law left it little room to launch a fully ready platform
