Computerized Financial Accounting with GST implementation
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Wikipedia
Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the measurement, processing, and communication of financial and non financial information about economic entities such as businesses and corporations. Accounting, which has been called the “language of business”, measures the results of an organization’s economic activities and conveys this information to a variety of stakeholders, including investors, creditors, management, and regulators. Practitioners of accounting are known as accountants. The terms “accounting” and “financial reporting” are often used as synonyms.
Accounting can be divided into several fields including financial accounting, management accounting, tax accounting and cost accounting. Financial accounting focuses on the reporting of an organization’s financial information, including the preparation of financial statements, to the external users of the information, such as investors, regulators and suppliers; and management accounting focuses on the measurement, analysis and reporting of information for internal use by management. The recording of financial transactions, so that summaries of the financials may be presented in financial reports, is known as bookkeeping, of which double-entry bookkeeping is the most common system. Accounting information systems are designed to support accounting functions and related activities.
Accounting has existed in various forms and levels of sophistication throughout human history. The double-entry accounting system in use today was developed in medieval Europe, particularly in Venice, and is usually attributed to the Italian mathematician and Franciscan friar Luca Pacioli. Today, accounting is facilitated by accounting organizations such as standard-setters, accounting firms and professional bodies. Financial statements are usually audited by accounting firms, and are prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). GAAP is set by various standard-setting organizations such as the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) in the United States and the Financial Reporting Council in the United Kingdom. As of 2012, “all major economies” have plans to converge towards or adopt the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).
Accounting is thousands of years old and can be traced to ancient civilizations. The early development of accounting dates back to ancient Mesopotamia, and is closely related to developments in writing, counting and money; there is also evidence of early forms of bookkeeping in ancient Iran, and early auditing systems by the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians. By the time of Emperor Augustus, the Roman government had access to detailed financial information.
Double-entry bookkeeping was pioneered in the Jewish community of the early-medieval Middle East and was further refined in medieval Europe. With the development of joint-stock companies, accounting split into financial accounting and management accounting.
The first published work on a double-entry bookkeeping system was the Sum ma de arithmetica, published in Italy in 1494 by Luca Pacioli (the “Father of Accounting”). Accounting began to transition into an organized profession in the nineteenth century, with local professional bodies in England merging to form the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales in 1880.
GST was a group of computer companies based in Cambridge, England, founded by Jeff Fenton in June 1979. The company worked with Sinclair Research, Torch Computers, Acorn Computers, Monotype Corporation and Kwik-Fit, amongst others.
The group included:
- GST Computer Systems: the original name of the company.
- GST Professional Services: a software consultancy that was sold and became OTIB A.T.
- GST Software Products: produced retail software, most notably Time works Publisher.
- GST Training Centre: a class based software training provider in Cambridgeshire, UK.
- Electric Software: a games software label, producing titles for home computers such as the Commodore 64, Sinclair ZX Spectrum and MSX-compatible models in the early 1980s.
GST Computer Systems started as a contract software development company. In 1983, it became involved with Sinclair Research, producing the 68K/OS operating system (later rejected by Sinclair) and development software for the Sinclair QL. In 1985 it was approached by Atari to port products from the QL on to the just to be launched Atari ST. The word processing package 1st Word was bundled with every Atari ST for the first two years of its life and GST became the leading software supplier for the Atari ST platform.
In 1987 GST developed its first desktop publishing application, Timeworks Publisher. This was sold in the US by Timeworks, Inc. (a Chicago based software publisher) as Publish-It!. This product went on to become the world-leading budget DTP product until competition from Microsoft Publisher in 1993 caused the eventual demise of Timeworks, Inc. The product was sold under new names including NEBS PageMagic (changed after objections from Adobe), Macmillan Publisher, Canon Publisher, and many other brands, distinguished by use of the .DTP file extension. The latest version was sold as Greenstreet Publisher 4 and is downwards file compatible with earlier versions.
In 2001 GST merged with eGames Europe as a new company, Green street Software. It remains a developer and publisher of computer software for Windows operating systems. In July 2008 the company was reconstructed and now trades as Green street Online Limited.
In November 2012, Green street Online Limited was declared insolvent, and went into voluntary liquidation.
Goods and Services Tax (GST) is an indirect tax (or consumption tax) used in India on the supply of goods and services. It is a comprehensive, multistage, destination-based tax: comprehensive because it has subsumed almost all the indirect taxes except a few state taxes. Multi-staged as it is, the GST is imposed at every step in the production process, but is meant to be refunded to all parties in the various stages of production other than the final consumer and as a destination-based tax, it is collected from point of consumption and not point of origin like previous taxes.
Goods and services are divided into five different tax slabs for collection of tax: 0%, 5%, 12%, 18% and 28%. However, petroleum products, alcoholic drinks, and electricity are not taxed under GST and instead are taxed separately by the individual state governments, as per the previous tax system. There is a special rate of 0.25% on rough precious and semi-precious stones and 3% on gold. In addition a cess of 22% or other rates on top of 28% GST applies on few items like aerated drinks, luxury cars and tobacco products. Pre-GST, the statutory tax rate for most goods was about 26.5%, Post-GST, most goods are expected to be in the 18% tax range.
The tax came into effect from 1 July 2017 through the implementation of the One Hundred and First Amendment of the Constitution of India by the Indian government. The GST replaced existing multiple taxes levied by the central and state governments.
The tax rates, rules and regulations are governed by the GST Council which consists of the finance ministers of the central government and all the states. The GST is meant to replace a slew of indirect taxes with a federated tax and is therefore expected to reshape the country’s $2.4 trillion economy, but its implementation has received criticism. Positive outcomes of the GST includes the travel time in interstate movement, which dropped by 20%, because of disbanding of interstate check posts.
The reform of India’s indirect tax regime was started in 1986 by Vishwanath Pratap Singh, Finance Minister in Rajiv Gandhi’s government, with the introduction of the Modified Value Added Tax (MODVAT). Subsequently, Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao and his Finance Minister Manmohan Singh, initiated early discussions on a Value Added Tax (VAT) at the state level. A single common “Goods and Services Tax (GST)” was proposed and given a go-ahead in 1999 during a meeting between the Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his economic advisory panel, which included three former RBI governors IG Patel, Bimal Jalan and C Rangarajan. Vajpayee set up a committee headed by the Finance Minister of West Bengal, Asim Dasgupta to design a GST model.
The Asim Dasgupta committee which was also tasked with putting in place the back-end technology and logistics (later came to be known as the GST Network, or GSTN, in 2015). It later came out for rolling out a uniform taxation regime in the country. In 2002, the Vajpayee government formed a task force under Vijay Kelkar to recommend tax reforms. In 2005, the Kelkar committee recommended rolling out GST as suggested by the 12th Finance Commission.
After the defeat of the BJP-led NDA government in the 2004 Lok Sabha election and the election of a Congress-led UPA government, the new Finance Minister P Chidambaram in February 2006 continued work on the same and proposed a GST rollout by 1 April 2010. However, in 2011, with the Trinamool Congress routing CPI(M) out of power in West Bengal, Asim Dasgupta resigned as the head of the GST committee. Dasgupta admitted in an interview that 80% of the task had been done.
The UPA introduced the 115th Constitution Amendment Bill on 22 March 2011 in the Lok Sabha to bring about the GST. It ran into opposition from the Bharatiya Janata Party and other parties and was referred to a Standing Committee headed by the BJP’s former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha. The committee submitted its report in August 2013, but in October 2013 Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi raised objections that led to the bill’s indefinite postponement. The Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh attributed the GST Bill’s failure to the “single handed opposition of Narendra Modi”.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA government was elected into power. With the consequential dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha, the GST Bill – approved by the standing committee for reintroduction – lapsed. Seven months after the formation of the then Modi government, the new Finance Minister Arun Jaitley introduced the GST Bill in the Lok Sabha, where the BJP had a majority. In February 2015, Jaitley set another deadline of 1 April 2017 to implement GST. In May 2016, the Lok Sabha passed the Constitution Amendment Bill, paving way for GST. However, the Opposition, led by the Congress, demanded that the GST Bill be again sent back for review to the Select Committee of the Rajya Sabha due to disagreements on several statements in the Bill relating to taxation. Finally, in August 2016, the Amendment Bill was passed. Over the next 15 to 20 days, 18 states ratified the Constitution amendment Bill and the President Pranab Mukher jee gave his assent to it.
A 21-member selected committee was formed to look into the proposed GST laws. After GST Council approved the Central Goods and Services Tax Bill 2017 (The CGST Bill), the Integrated Goods and Services Tax Bill 2017 (The IGST Bill), the Union Territory Goods and Services Tax Bill 2017 (The UTGST Bill), the Goods and Services Tax (Compensation to the States) Bill 2017 (The Compensation Bill), these Bills were passed by the Lok Sabha on 29 March 2017. The Rajya Sabha passed these Bills on 6 April 2017 and were then enacted as Acts on 12 April 2017. Thereafter, State Legislatures of different States have passed respective State Goods and Services Tax Bills. After the enactment of various GST laws, Goods and Services Tax was launched all over India with effect from 1 July 2017. The Jammu and Kashmir state legislature passed its GST act on 7 July 2017, thereby ensuring that the entire nation is brought under a unified indirect taxation system. There was to be no GST on the sale and purchase of securities. That continues to be governed by Securities Transaction Tax (STT).