By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, JAN 07, 2017: EVEN though the final roll-out date for the GST continues to be a matter of speculation not only for the industry and trade but also the Union Finance Minister, Mr Arun Jaitley, the migration of the existing assessees under VAT and Central Laws like Central Excise and the Service Tax, has been an ongoing affair. No doubt, it is a voluntary exercise so far but the GST Network has been pushing for quick migration of all database from the various States and the CBEC to its own server.

To facilitate the migration of service tax and Central Excise assessees the CBEC Member, Mr S Ramesh, has written to the filed formations that as per Sec 166 of the draft CGST Act read with relevant rules, every Central Excise / Service Tax assessee having a valid PAN shall be granted registration under GST regime on a provisional basis. For such assessees, GSTN shall generate provisional IDs and communicate the same to the assessees through CBEC for migration to the GST regime. The Directorate General of Systems, CBEC has made necessary arrangement of communicating the provisional IDs along with passwords to the respective assessees through the ACES portal (www.aces.gov.in).

He has suggested that awareness campaigns or outreach programmes such as seminars and workshops may be arranged for taxpayers to facilitate this exercise. Details, including photographs, of such seminars/workshops may be uploaded in the CBEC's INTRANET PORTAL-ANTARANG (https:/antarang.icegate.gov.in) by the Zonal Chief Commissioners on a daily basis. A separate TAB (titled: MIGRATION TO GST) is being created in ANTARANG to enable Chief Commissioners to upload the details of Seminars/Workshops. Nodal officers may be appointed at the Zonal/ Commissionerate/ Divisional level to assist the assessees in the migration process, he added.

He has called upon the Chief Commissioners to guide their jurisdictional assessees to migrate to GST well in time.