SAKSHAM - GS questions based on daily current affairs

1)   Project SAKSHAM is related to

a. Rural livelihood program
b. Poverty alleviation
c. Direct taxes
d. Indirect taxes
Answer  Explanation 

ANSWER: Indirect taxes

Explanation:

  • The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has approved ‘Project SAKSHAM’, a New Indirect Tax Network (Systems Integration) of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC).
    It will help in:
    1. Implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST),
    2. Extension of the Indian Customs Single Window Interface for Facilitating Trade (SWIFT) and
    3. Other taxpayer-friendly initiatives under Digital India and Ease of Doing Business of Central Board of Excise and Customs.
  • All Taxpayers/lmporters/Exporters/Dealers under various indirect tax laws administered by CBEC- presently about 36 lakhs, likely to go up to over 65 lakhs after introduction of GST.
  • CBEC's IT systems need to integrate with the Goods & Services Tax Network (GSTN) for processing of registration, payment and returns data sent by GSTN systems to CBEC, as well as act as a front-end for other modules like Audit, Appeal, Investigation. There is no overlap in the GST-related systems of CBEC and GSTN.
  • This IT infrastructure is also urgently required for continuation of CBEC's e-Services in Customs, Central Excise & Service Tax, implementation of tax¬payer services such as scanned document upload facility, extension of Indian Customs Single Window Interface for Facilitating Trade (SWIFT) initiative and integration with Government initiatives such as E-Nivesh, E-Taal, e-Sign.