CAG will audit Goods and Services Tax network

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley made it clear that Comptroller and Auditor General of India will audit the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN). GSTN is a company that provides technology backbone for the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

Talking to a private news channel, Mr Jailtey said, the present structure of GSTN was decided by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) when Mr P Chidambaram was the Finance Minister and he personally reviewed the entire structure and there was nothing disagreeable.

He reasoned that GSTN has to match various vouchers, literally in hundreds of crores every month and therefore it needs an extremely efficient IT network. In the GSTN, the central and the state governments will together own 49 per cent of the equity and the rest would be with some very responsible bodies like LIC Housing, National Stock Exchange and HDFC Bank.

Mr Jaitley said, the CEO of the GSTN will be appointed by the government and every decision would be with a positive vote of the government thereby giving a veto to it also the majority on the board will be government appointees. BJP Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy has repeatedly questioned the shareholding pattern of GSTN terming it a grave secuirty issue.

24 states have so far passed the State GST Act. 7 States- Meghalaya, Punjab,Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Jammu and Kashmir and West Bengal are yet to pass the Act. The government has decided to roll out the new Indirect Tax regime from 1st of next month.