Goods and Services Tax Network

The Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) provides the digital infrastructure through which taxpayers and tax authorities carry out GST-related processes. It operates the common GST portal and supports registration, return filing, payment-related services and information exchange, while statutory tax administration remains with the relevant government authorities.

Institutional role in GST administration

GSTN is a not-for-profit government company, jointly owned by the Union government and the State and Union Territory governments. It provides a shared technology platform for a tax administered by both Union and State authorities.

• The common portal gives taxpayers a single digital interface for major compliance processes, reducing the need to interact separately with multiple tax offices.
• GSTN connects taxpayer-facing services with the systems used by tax departments, allowing information to move between taxpayers and administrators.
• It also provides back-end applications to tax administrations that use its services, while other administrations operate their own back-end systems.

Services provided through the GST system

GSTN translates GST compliance requirements into online workflows. Its role covers the technology supporting taxpayers' obligations, rather than the exercise of statutory taxing powers.

• Registration: The portal receives applications and supporting information and routes them to the relevant tax authorities for processing.
• Return filing: It enables taxpayers to report supplies and tax liabilities, file returns and access information derived from suppliers' filings.
• Payment support: It enables challan generation and maintains electronic ledgers, integrating with authorised payment systems rather than itself acting as a bank.
• Revenue settlement: It supplies information needed for accounting and settlement of GST revenues between the Union and States, including Integrated GST.

Compliance support and limits of its role

By bringing registration, transaction, return and payment information onto a common platform, GSTN supports data-based compliance monitoring. Tax authorities can use this information to identify discrepancies and select cases for scrutiny.

• Digitised records make it easier to compare suppliers' reported transactions with recipients' input tax credit information.
• A common information infrastructure supports coordination between Union and State tax administrations.
• The GST Council recommends GST policy matters; GSTN provides the technology needed to implement the resulting legal and administrative requirements.
• Tax authorities, not GSTN, exercise statutory powers such as assessment, audit, adjudication and enforcement.