Subject: KGST ACT, 2017 -Electronic system to approve enrolment of Goods and Services Tax Practitioners - Reg.

(1) With the introduction of Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 in the country, the nature and scope of the tax practitioners is redefined and enlarged to the extent of filing of online statements, returns, uploading of tax invoices, seeking amendments, payments and refunds on behalf of the taxable persons who authorise the tax practitioner. The scope of geographical jurisdiction and functional jurisdiction is also enlarged due to advent of the GST Act and also because of subsuming of different acts under one umbrella of GST. Because of this, the validity of Sales Tax Practitioners enrolled under the previous Karnataka Value Added Tax Act, 2003, hitherto, has lost its relevance under the GST Act.

(2) The present GST Act, 2017 enables the newly enrolled practitioners to practice in any part of the country before any of the GST authority, irrespective of the fact that the applicant is enrolled under the State/Union Territory jurisdiction or Central jurisdiction. Any person enrolled under the GST Act, 2017 as Goods and Services Tax Practitioner (hereinafter referred in short as GSTP) residing in the state of Karnataka and enrolled under Karnataka state authority can represent any other taxable person of any other state before the GST authorities of the respective states. Thus, the GSTP enrolment made in any one state or UT or Centre becomes Pan India enrolment. The act also mandates the taxable person to authorise a GSTP online and also the latter to accept online only.

(3) The provisions of section 48 of the KGST Act, 2017 and Rules 83 and 84 of the KGST Rules 2017 envisages that every prescribed eligible applicant shall apply online, in FORM GST PCT-01, in the Common Portal - www.ast.sov.in for enrolment as Goods and Service Tax Practitioner.

(4) Commercial Taxes Department, Karnataka with its robust and stable IT infrastructure has opted to be a Model-1 State wherein the back-end processes for tax administration are required to be designed and developed by department. The Additional Commissioner of Commercial Taxes (Revision and Recovery) has been authorised under the Karnataka Goods and Services Act, 2017 as the Authorised Officer, an authority to issue Enrolment Certificate as per the notification No. KGST.CR.45/17-18 dated 17.08.2017.

(5) Accordingly, an online system of flow of application from the Authorised Officer to respective JCCT-DGSTO to LGSTOs / SGSTOs and back to the Authorised Officer is developed. The applications for new enrolment received by the Authorised Officer shall be forwarded to the respective JCCT-DGSTO who in turn conduct verification of the documents. The JCCT-DGSTO after receipt of application in his login, issues an endorsement, electronically, informing the applicant to appear before him within seven days from the date of issue of endorsement, in his office for verification of the originals. Upon, verification of the documents, the JCCT-DGSTO uploads the verification report along with his recommendations and then forward to the authorised officer for final approval or rejection. In case, the JCCT-DGSTO is of the opinion that the professional address of the applicant need to be verified, he may forward the application to the concerned jurisdictional ACCT-LGSTO or CTO-SGSTO, who in turn submits his field report online, after conducting verification of the place of profession. After the receipt of the verification report from the JCCT-DGSTO, the authorised officer either accepts or rejects the application online in www.gst.kar.nic.in/gstpro.

(6) The flow chart, detailed procedure backend process chart and verification report are prepared based on which NIC has developed online backend process system which is tested and is put in place and is attached herewith.

(7) It is hereby directed to the concerned offiecers to communicate to all the associations of the tax practitioners and their fraternity in the state for the purpose of smooth functioning of the module.

(8) Further, any difficulties in implementation of the above instructions may please be brought to the notice of the Authorised Officer i.e. the Additional Commissioner of Commercial Taxes (Revision & Recovery), Office of the Commissioner of Commercial Taxes (Karnataka). I Floor, Kalidasa Marg, Gandhinagar, Bengaluru - 560009 either through written communication or through email to addcom.randr@gmail.cont so as to further improve the back-end process module.

(SRIKAR MS)

Commissioner of Commercial Taxes (Karnataka),

Bengaluru