UIDAI Chairman Nandan Nilekani on Wednesday briefed the Chairman of the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers on GST Sushil Modi here about the IT initiatives for the roll out of Goods and Services Tax. Nilekani discussed with the Bihar Deputy Chief Minister, who also holds the state finance portfolio, an initiative for centralised IT infrastructure for Goods and Services Tax (GST) across states.

The common IT facilities can at present be used for Value Added Tax and will be available for GST as and when it is implemented, a Bihar government statement said. The GST, considered as a major tax reform, would subsume most of the central and state taxes into a single levy.

The IT platform will entail a common portal providing 3 core services - registration, returns and payments. "This would mean a common PAN-based taxpayer ID, a common return, and a common challan for tax payment," the statement said.

This will have the facility of reconciliation of transaction across different taxes - VAT, Income Tax, Central excise resulting in detection of tax evasion and plugging of loopholes.

Nilekani proposed that a company can be registered having a shareholding contribution from states for development and operation of such IT infrastructure.

Once a proposal is approved by the Empowered Committee, the company may come into operation in a year. However, in parallel, pilot projects with different states can start as proof of concept. In this regard the pilot projects of Maharashtra and Gujarat and early benefits were also discussed.

Modi, who was recently elected as Chairman of the EC, assured the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) chief that the initiative would be discussed in the next meeting of the state finance minister's panel and requested him to make a presentation before the Committee. Nilekani also discussed the implementation of UID project in Bihar.