EY launches DigiGST Intelligent Tax Automation Tool for GST, Hosted on Microsoft Azure

EY, the leading global professional services organization, announced the launch of DigiGST, its integrated GSP-ASP solution that provides organisations with end-to-end GST compliance support.

DigiGST is hosted on the highly secure Microsoft Azure platform and combines EY’s tax domain expertise, technology capabilities and deep Sector knowledge.

Rajiv Memani, chairman, EY India and chairman, Global Emerging Markets Committee, EY, said: “The launch of GST is perhaps India’s most significant and complex economic reform the largest yet most complex change in the world and technology will play a critical role in this transformation journey. DigiGST combines our tax knowledge and technology expertise in a way that it adds value to businesses, helping them fully realise the benefits of GST while meeting compliance requirements in the most digital or user-friendly way."

The GST Network (GSTN) will be the technology backbone of the new GST regime and it is estimated that over 8 million taxpayers will upload in excess of 3 billion invoices in a month on the GSTN. This is unique to India’s GST network as this level of transaction volume has not been managed in any other tax governance system anywhere in the world.

DigiGST is built on a fault tolerant and secure Microsoft Azure cloud platform that has the world’s best standards for cloud privacy. This solution uses intelligent tax automation supported by industry specific algorithms and a reliable and resilient technology platform that is capable of handling a large volume of transaction data.

Bertrand Launay, COO, Microsoft India, said: “Microsoft Azure cloud offers the most consistent, familiar and stable environment through local datacenters for EY’s intelligent tax automation tool, DigiGST.

"It ensures protection of business-critical data with managed cloud backups and disaster recovery as a built- in service. Microsoft Azure is ISO/IEC 27018 certified and has the world’s first code of practice for cloud privacy. Its multi-level security and flexibility will further support the scalability and resilience of the DigiGST solution.”

Sudhir Kapadia, partner and National Tax leader, EY India, added: “Tax compliance work in India has hitherto been about manual extraction and processing of transaction data, and submitting returns to the tax authority in a prescribed manner. This is set to change with GST.

"Built by our professionals with deep tax domain and sector knowledge in collaboration with our technology experts, DigiGST helps businesses optimise the benefits of GST. We have the largest pool of Indirect Tax (IDT) professionals powered by over 800 GST practitioners across 14 cities. India’s GST is the biggest and most ambitious digital tax reform carried out by any country, making DigiGST, the largest intelligent tax automation project of EY anywhere in the world."

EY’s GSP will connect with the GSTN system seamlessly over a secured leased-line and upload taxpayer data in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format using Application Programming Interface (APIs) and the license key accorded by the GSTN. EY ASP will provide all the value-added services to make GST compliance easier.

Only GSPs and ASPs together can provide seamless end-to-end GST compliance services to taxpayers. The DigiGST uses robust in-memory multilevel reconciliation for timely error detection and appropriate credit availment to taxpayers thus reducing their working capital blockage.

Harishanker Subramaniam, partner and Indirect Tax leader, EY India, noted:  “Today, organisations are faced with the challenge of ensuring robust GST compliance and governance while their internal and external systems stabilize, as they prepare for the GST rollout.

"Our DigiGST solution is purpose-built to offer timely GST compliance of a company’s entire business ecosystem including supply-side vendors and delivery, including distribution partners. This solution is designed to be scalable and flexible to handle the large data volumes expected to flow through the system in traffic patterns that are likely to be uneven and unpredictable. DigiGST is also highly customisable with a rules engine that can adjust to a company’s sector and structural complexities including tax positions."

Companies today are concerned about safety of their data and are keen to know how ASPs and GSPs will ensure data integrity and security while they interact with the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to extract transaction records.

The DigiGST solution, while being customisable, automated and intuitive, is also highly resilient, providing the best security infrastructure and complying with the highest accepted industry standards. At each layer of the infrastructure and application, controls have been established to ensure data confidentiality and integrity.

While the GSTN mandates all GSPs to be ISO 27001 certified, EY’s ASP solution too complies with the ISO 27001 data security standards. DigiGST ensures that the entire value chain from taxpayer system to the EY ASP to the EY GSP platform and server works like a single secure data pipeline.

DigiGST offers role-based access control privileges to prevent any individual other than the one assigned by the company leadership to interact with the complete dataset. This solution uses data virtualisation to prevent data manipulation and theft by individuals with access to the solution interface.

EY’s two ISO 27001 certified Security Operations Centers (SOCs) in Chennai and Trivandrum with highly mature detection and response capabilities will provide 24/7 monitoring and control of data security as part of the DigiGST service offering.