The Rs 35,000-cr business of making India GST-ready

Some of the players in the GST race are Payworld, Dell, Tally Solutions

 

 

The past few days have been ‘taxing’ for Pawan Kumar Gupta, in a race against time to become compliant with the requirement for the coming national goods and services tax (GST).

A hardware and bathroom fittings supplier, he’s been zeroing on GST-ready commercial computers and hiring three new accountants, adept with the new intricacies, among other things. A checklist in hand, Gupta is making notes on the things that have to be done before July 1, when GST becomes a reality. Till now, he has spent around Rs 2 lakh in equipping himself for the transition.

National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data from 2013 say there are around 57.7 million registered small and medium traders. Beside, at least 15 million retailers and hundreds of thousands of offline and online ventures would all come under the new tax net. The money they’d spend for this over the next two years would be over Rs 35,000 crore, say experts.

 

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In the past eight months, the huge spending potential has created a new sector, of GST enablers. These include providers of computer hardware and software. And, legal, technical and personnel support and services. Every small entity is investing its money to comply with the new regime.

Unlike the value added tax (VAT), say experts, GST is fully computerised, with many layers only professional accountants can understand. So, the demand for computers and skilled personnel will rise.

 

Competition is already on between hardware companies. “We are eyeing the lion’s share of the market and are prepared with our solutions. We have an outreach programme for traders. We believe we would see immediate returns for the next six months to one year,” said Pankaj Harjai, director of the small and medium business at (read more...)