BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on Thursday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to bring full Government control in the company called GSTN, formed by UPA Government with 51 percentage private participation to manage the administration of Goods and Services Tax (GST). In a letter to Modi, the BJP leader said it was not advisable to bring private firms in the administration of tax-related matters.
Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) was formed as a Section 25 company in March 2013 with Centre and States having 49 per cent. Rest 51 per cent of shares were controlled by private banks and National Stock Exchanges’ subsidiary company. Ten percent of shares each were held by HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, HDFC ltd and NSE Strategic Investment Corporation. Eleven percent shares are held by lIC Housing Finance limited, where Bank of Muscat and Abu Dhabi Investment Corporation also have shares, said Swamy.
“Being a Section 25 company, GSTN is a not-for-profit organisation. Then why private profit making entities have any stake, and that too majority stake in itIJ What is in it for themIJ Implementing GST scheme requires Constitutional Amendments and then only the GST administration and tax management company would be by GSTN. All the data management for computation of tax share, will be by GSTN,” said Swamy arguing that the programming work and electronic management should be handled by Government itself.
“Tax administration is a matter that deals with sensitive private information. Being such a large shareholder, this automatically means that HDFC and ICICI will be the bankers of public money collected through taxes,” he said, citing a recent transfer of `4,000 crore by GSTN to develop software.