Ajit Pawar to head GoM on GST System Reforms

The Centre has constituted a group of ministers (GoM) for the GST System Reforms, headed by deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar who holds the finance and planning departments. This comes days after the 45th GST council meeting that was held in Lucknow,

While Pawar will be the convenor, the GoM members include Delhi’s deputy CM Manish Sisodia, Haryana’s deputy CM Dushyant Chautala, Andhra Pradesh’s finance minister Buggana Rajendranath, Assam’s finance minister Ajanta Neog, Chhattisgarh minister for commercial taxes T S Singh Deo, Odisha’s finance minister Niranjan pujari and Tamil Nadu’s finance minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan.

According to the government notification, the GoM will review the IT tools and interface available with tax officers and suggest steps to make the system more effective and efficient, including changes in the business processes, identify potential sources of evasion and changes in business processes and IT systems to plug revenue leakage and identify possible use of data analysis towards better compliance and revenue augmentation and suggest use of such data analysis.

Further, the GoM will identify mechanisms for better coordination between the Central and state tax administration and tax administrations of different states and suggest timelines for changes. The GoM will give its recommendations to the GST Council from time to time and review the implementation of reform measures approved by the Council. The Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) will provide the necessary secretarial support to the GoM.