Old babus, new roles, and a new GST head in tax department

NEW DELHI: The new tax regime, GST, apart from overhauling India’s indirect tax system, will also likely alter the tax administration structure, including changes

NEW DELHI: The new tax regime, GST, apart from overhauling India’s indirect tax system, will also likely alter the tax administration structure, including changes in the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC).

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According to sources, CBEC, which currently has seven members, including the chairman, is likely to have a new member position who will be in charge of GST — its implementation, audit and checks .

The change in babudom will also have a new GST commissionerate, both at the central and state level.

Similarly, a lot of field officers, in charge of excise and service tax, will see a re-allocation of business, since all these levies will get subsumed under one tax — GST.

At the state level, those dealing with VAT, octroi, luxury tax etc, will also see change in roles, allocation of responsibilities and changed patterns of monitoring and mapping of revenues.

Around 60,000 officials of central and state governments will be initially trained on GST laws and IT framework in phases. The first phase include “source trainers”, and the exercise has already been completed by the government. In the second phase, about 350 “master trainers” will be trained till mid or end of August 2016. By the third phase, around 1,000 officers will be part of trainer sessions by October 2016.

In the last leg, which will be around the end of December this year, 60,000 officers will be trained among the current CBEC staff, who will be the facilitators of the tax regime.