GST

All you need to know about GST Suvidha Provider

GST Suvidha Provider (GSP) was introduced and established by the Goods and Service Tax Network (GSTN) to assist the taxpayer to comply with the provisions of GST. It is regarded as an enabler or authorised intermediary for businesses to access the GST portal services. Scroll down to check more information regarding GSP.

Who is a GST Suvidha Provider (GSP)?

With the help of a GSP, a GST taxpayer can comply with all the procedural requirements of the GST Law via its web platform. GSP serves as an innovative method or means of an effective interactive platform for taxpayers to access the GST portal services. Whether it is GST registration or invoicing or completion of GST returns filing, GSP assists in all of them.

What is the significance of GSP?

Process such as filing GST returns or synchronizing invoice details under GST is a very time-consuming journey for the taxpayer as the taxpayer has to fill numerous returns every year. This is where the GSP’s significance can be well understood as it caters to the need of a taxpayer by simplifying the process and saves time that is needed for the GST compliance, whether it is GST Return filing or synchronization of invoices.

GSP shall provide APIs to carry out procedures such as GST Registration, GST Return filing, tax payment or invoice uploading and will also be in direct contact with the GSTN.

Eligibility to become a GST Suvidha Provider

The organisations or entities that are expected to sign up as GSPs are visualised to be as provided:

• Registered companies in India in the domain of IT / ITES / BFSI.
• The prospective applicant for GSP is required to fulfil pre-qualification criteria for GSPs.
• GSPs that satisfy the pre-qualification criteria will have to sign a contract with GSTN to become an authorised GSP.
• This draft contract contains the following content:
  1. Definitions and responsibilities of GSPs and also their legal obligations as well as their liabilities.
  2. A Technical architectural framework laying down how GSPs shall integrate with the GST System.
  3. Commercial terms and conditions with SLAs to be met.
  4. After signing of contract, GSPs will receive a unique license key for accessing the GST system. GSPs shall be authenticated with this license key (Client id + Client Secret) provided by the GSTN. GSP will possess a provision to generate multiple license keys according to its need.

Who is an Application Service Provider?

In order to ensure effective automated compliance under GST, software based applications are being developed to help tax payers to do timely and convenient compliance. Such players are termed “Application Service Provider or ASP”. These third party applications connect with GST system through secure GST System APIs. The service providers who develop these secure channels are called GST Suvidha Provider. GSPs and ASPs will provide much needed assistance to taxpayers in the IT ecosystem for GST.

Role of GST Suvidha Provider

To summarize things, ASP-GSP shall do the following activities:

• Upload Invoice data (B-2-B and large value B-2-C).
• Upload GSTR-1 (return containing supply data) that would be created based on the invoice data and some other data provided by taxpayer.
• Download data on inward supplies (receipts/purchases) in the form of draft GSTR-2 from GST Portal formed by the Portal based on GSTR-1 filed by corresponding suppliers.
• Does matching of purchases and those downloaded from GST portal^[1]. Complete the same based on his own purchase (inward supply data) and upload GSTR-2.
• File GSTR-3 created by the GST Portal based on GSTR-1 and 2.
• Meet other applicable compliances.

It may be noted here that if a taxpayer goes for direct access to G2B portal or chooses the more easy option of using GSP services, a provision is made in the IT ecosystem under GST for the taxpayer to have absolute control, security, and total privacy while interacting with the GST system.

Benefits of completing GST compliance through ASP-GSP

• Automated uploading as well as downloading of data.
• Ability to acclimatize to changing tax rules and regulations and other business rules and end user usage models.
• Integration with customer software (such as ERP, Accounting systems) that tax payers and others are already using for their daily activities.
• Assists in matching input tax credit.
• Consumption across technologies and platforms (mobile, tablets, desktops, etc.) based on the individual requirements.

Conclusion

In India, there have been 3 rounds of empanelment/licensing for GST Suvidha Providers by the GSTN until Nov 2019. The 4^th round is held for empanelment till April 2021. 34 companies were given GSP licenses during the 1^st round of allotment, followed by 42. 10 were approved in the last round.

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