Chartered Accountants in Practice/Firms of Chartered Accountants to register themselves on GeM (Government e- marketplace) Portal
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India ( ICAI ) has permitted the Chartered Accountants ( CA ) in Practice, Firms of Chartered Accountants are permitted to register on GeM Portal for rendering professional services.
The ICAI has said that, The Institute has been receiving queries as to whether Chartered Accountants in Practice/Firms of Chartered Accountants can register themselves on GeM Portal as registration on the Portal is a pre-requirement for providing professional services to the Government departments/ organisations.
The ICAI has clarified that, the Chartered Accountants in Practice / Firms of Chartered Accountants are permitted to register on GeM Portal for rendering professional services.
The information being published on the portal should be in compliance with the provisions of Code of Ethics.
The ICAI also said that, the Guidelines on Tenders dt. 7th April, 2016 issued by the Institute will be applicable to tender floated through GeM Portal also without any change.
The Guidelines are appearing as Appendix -J of Volume-II of Code of Ethics, and may be accessed on the website of the Institute at the link below:
This provides an opportunity to the ICAI members to expand their professional horizons and to foster working relations between the two accounting institutes. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ) will have an opportunity to play the leadership role in addressing new challenges facing the profession in a globalized environment.
The Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, has approved a fresh Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ).
Impact:
The MOU intends to develop mutually beneficial relationship in the best interest of members, students and their organizations and is expected to provide an opportunity to the ICAI members to expand their professional horizons and to foster working relations between the two accounting institutes. The two accountancy institutes will have an opportunity to play the leadership role in addressing new challenges facing the profession in a globalized environment.
Benefits:
The engagement between the two Institutes is expected to result in greater employment opportunities for Indian Chartered Accountants and also greater remittances back to India.
Details:
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) & Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ) would mutually recognize the qualification and admit the Members in good standing by prescribing a bridging mechanism between the two Institutes. The ICAI and CA ANZ aim to establish a mutual co-operation framework for the advancement of accounting knowledge, professional and intellectual development, advancement of the interests of their respective members and contribute positively to the development of the accounting profession in Australia, New Zealand and India.
Implementation strategy and Targets:
The MoU provides for mutual recognition of qualification of members of other body, who have achieved membership by completing the Examination, professional program and practical experience membership requirements of the two parties.
Background:
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) is a statutory body established by an Act of Parliament of India, The Chartered Accountants Act, 1949′, to regulate the profession of Chartered Accountancy in India. Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ), emerged from the merger of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia and the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants in October 2014.
Starting April 1, companies must state if they have been declared wilful defaulters by banks, financial institutions or other lenders. The ministry also mandated companies to record audit trails of their accounts. Firms using accounting software to maintain their books need to use features that can record the audit trail of each transaction and create an edit log, including the date of such changes.
India Inc will have to declare investments in cryptocurrencies, relationships with dissolved companies and loans extended to related parties, among a host of other disclosures mandated by the government to improve transparency.
Starting April 1, companies must state if they have been declared wilful defaulters by banks, financial institutions or other lenders.
The ministry of corporate affairs announced a new set of disclosures rules under the Companies Act on Wednesday, significantly enhancing financial and general reporting requirements for companies.
The ministry also mandated companies to record audit trails of their accounts. Firms using accounting software to maintain their books need to use features that can record the audit trail of each transaction and create an edit log, including the date of such changes.
Amending the Companies (Accounts) Rules, the ministry said firms must ensure the audit trail feature on the accounting software cannot be disabled. The move is aimed at curbing backdated entries and will affect mainly smaller companies as the bigger ones already use such software, according to Shalu Kedia, a partner at Nangia & Co.
Additional disclosures to be made under schedule III of the Companies Act, 2013, relate to matters such as corporate social responsibility spending, cryptocurrency dealings, benami property, relationship with struck-off, or dissolved, companies, and ageing of payables & receivables with vendors.
These disclosures will make it easier for the government to track non-compliance and take action against defaulting companies, experts said.
“Earlier, the companies were only required to disclose trade payables and receivables, but there was no requirement to provide ageing details. This disclosure will mandate the company to disclose the ageing payment cycle for MSMEs and non-MSME vendors,” said Nischal Arora, a partner at Nangia Andersen LLP.
Dealings in cryptocurrencies must be disclosed with details of the profit or loss on such transactions, amounts of such currency held and deposits or advances from any person for trading or investing in these currencies.
“While the government is already working on a bill on cryptocurrency, the disclosure for such currency has made it clear that the government wants to gather data on cryptocurrency,” said Arora.
Another important change was related to the disclosure of any benami property holdings.
“This disclosure is another step to improve transparency for the stakeholders as they will have to disclose any proceeding that has been initiated or pending against the company for holding any benami property and also provide a reasoning and view on the same,” said Amit Maheshwari, a partner at AKM Global.
The additional disclosures will make it mandatory for companies to provide details of shortfall in CSR spending for the previous years, including reasons for not meeting targets.
Loans granted to promoters, directors and related parties that are repayable on demand or without specific repayment terms from companies must be declared in terms of amount and percentage to total loans granted.
While this will push firms to regularly service their loans, it “will be helpful for the investor and other lenders to be aware about these types of companies before making any investment or lending the money,” Maheshwari said.
Use of analytics and AI augment India’s vision for #aatmanirbharta & development Plan to come up with a machine learning driven MCA-21 Version 3.0 is in process: Budget 2021
In the Budget 2021, it was mentioned that govt. will be establishing technology based on data analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning tools in the areas of finance, taxation and online compliance monitoring among others.
Accordingly, MCA has now established a Central Scrutiny Centre (CSC) for carrying out scrutiny of Straight Through Processes (STP) e-forms filed by the companies under the Company Law made thereunder.
The Ministry of Corporate Affairs established a Central Scrutiny Centre (CSC) for carrying out scrutiny of Straight Through Processes (STP) e-forms filed by the companies under the Act and the rules.
The notification said that the CSC shall function under the administrative control of the e-governance Cell of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.
The CSC shall carry out scrutiny of the aforesaid forms and forward findings thereon, wherever required, to the concerned jurisdictional Registrar of Companies for further necessary action under the provisions of the Act and the rules made thereunder.
“The CSC shall be located at the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA), Plot No. 6, 7, 8, Sector 5, IMT Manesar, District Gurgaon (Haryana), Pin Code- 122050,” the MCA notified.
The notification shall come into force from the 23rd March, 2021.
The Ministry for Corporate Affairs Ministry has hinted that the suspension of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) is likely to be revoked after March 24.
he Ministry for Corporate Affairs Ministry has hinted that the suspension of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) is likely to be revoked after March 24.
This has been conveyed in a written submission by the Ministry to the Standing Committee on Finance headed by Jayant Sinha. This submission came along with the note on allocation and utilisation of funds for the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI), which is the insolvency regulator.
“It is expected that the suspension of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code will likely be revoked after March 24 and activities of IBBI will be increased manifold in the next financial year,” the MCA submission said.
Given that the economy is now in recovery mode, it is widely expected that the Centre will revoke the suspension after March 24. Also, any extension of the suspension this date would require Parliament approval, legal experts said.
6-month suspension
A six-month suspension was first introduced in June 5 for debt defaults arising post March 25, 2020, when the Covid-induced lockdown was announced. The suspension was to end on September 25, but was extended up to December 25. In mid-December, the suspension was further extended by three months, up to March 25.
In effect, the government had ensured that any corporate debt default during Covid, between March 25, 2020 and March 25, 2021, will remain outside the IBC purview. However, for defaults before March 25, 2020, there will be no protection, said experts.
While the law protects the corporate debtor from insolvency proceedings for the one-year period till March 25, it does not disallow such action against the personal guarantors of a corporate debtor.
‘Go digital’
In a separate development, the Standing Committee on Finance has, in its latest report tabled in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, directed the MCA to move towards full digitisation of its functions, particularly of its statutory bodies. It sees the quasi judicial bodies facing a deluge of cases post withdrawal of the moratorium and underscored stressed the need to enhance their digital and infrastructural capacities to handle the increase in caseload.
The RBI notified Rotation Policy instead of Cooling Period for Bank Branch Audit for CAs.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) notified the change in norms on eligibility, empanelment, the appointment of Statutory Branch Auditors in Public Sector Banks from years 2020-21 onwards.
The RBI notified Rotation Policy instead of Cooling Period for Bank Branch Audit for CAs. In other words, the concept of compulsory rest for two years for audit firms located in the specified centres, after completion of four years of continuous branch audit, followed till Financial Year 2019-20 has been done away with.
Instead, the branch auditors across all the centres of the country, on completion of four years of continuous branch audit, will be subjected to the policy of rotation i.e. they may be considered for appointment as SBAs of any other PSB.
However, the audit firms will not be eligible to be re-appointed as SBAs, in the same bank where they completed their audit assignment prior to rest/rotation, at least for one cycle of four years.
The RBI further notified the change on norms for selection of branches of Public Sector Banks (PSBs) for Statutory Audit.
Firstly, statutory branch audit of PSBs should be carried out so as to cover 90% of all funded and 90% of all non-funded credit exposures of a bank.
The selection of branches for statutory audit shall include a representative cross section of rural/semi-urban/urban and metropolitan branches, predominantly including branches which are not subjected to concurrent audit.
CPUs/LPUs/and other centralised hubs, by whatever nomenclature called, would be included for branch audit every year.
The selection of branches shall be finalised by each PSB with the consent of their Statutory Central Auditor/s. Secondly, in respect of those branches, which are subject to concurrent audit by chartered accountants and not selected for branch audit, LFARs and other certifications done by concurrent auditors will be submitted to the Managing Director & CEO of the bank.
The banks in turn will consolidate/compile all such LFARs and other certifications submitted by the Concurrent Auditors and submit to Statutory Central Auditor/s as an internal document of the bank.
The RBI notified the change in the procedure for appointment of Statutory Branch Auditors.
Firstly, the list of eligible auditors/audit firms will be prepared by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) as per the norms prescribed by RBI.
Secondly, the list will be subjected to scrutiny by RBI for identifying the continuing and rested firms and excluding audit firms who have been denied audit.
Thirdly, RBI will, thereafter, forward the final list of all eligible auditors/audit firms to PSBs for selection of the required number of branch auditors/audit firms.
Banks will be required to clearly advise the selected audit firms that each audit firm can take up audit assignments (branch audit) in one PSB only. The audit firm should give its consent in writing for consideration of appointment in the bank concerned for the particular year and the subsequent continuing years.
Fourthly, the consent given by an audit firm is irrevocable and no request from audit firms for changing the bank, after giving its consent will be entertained.
Fifthly, after the selection of branch auditors, PSBs will be required to recommend the names of both continuing and selected branch auditors to RBI for seeking its prior approval before their actual appointment, as per statutory requirement.
The RBI while elaboration on the change in general guidelines applicable to appointment of Statutory Branch Auditors stated that SBAs will have a maximum tenure of four years in a particular bank.
The appointment of SBAs will be made on an annual basis, subject to their fulfilling the eligibility norms prescribed by RBI from time to time, and also subject to their suitability.
“While allotting branches, banks are required to select auditors/audit firms which are in close proximity to their offices/branches. Banks are also required to have a suitable mix of various categories of auditors / audit firms while selecting the branch auditors keeping in view the size of the branches to be audited.
Banks are advised to allot branches, to the extent possible, to the audit firms taking into consideration their category and audit experience in such a way that specialised and larger branches are audited by bigger/experienced audit firms,” the RBI said.
The audit firms retiring as Statutory Central Auditors from a PSB shall not be eligible to be appointed as SBAs of the same PSB during the prescribed cooling period for SCAs from that particular PSB.
The RBI notified change in the eligibility norms for the empanelment of audit firms to be appointed as Statutory Branch Auditors in PSBs.
To handle the menace of fake firms and circular trading entities, GST officials have cancelled 1,63,042 registrations in the month of October and November this year due to non-filing of GSTR-3B returns for more than six months
The Government has canceled the Goods and Service Tax (GST) registration of 163,000 business entities who have not filed monthly tax returns (GSTR-3B) for the last six months or more.
Furthermore, the department would persuade 25,000 taxpayers, who have not filed returns for October that was due by November 24, to comply with tax return deadlines.
“All these business entities, who had not filed their GSTR-3B returns for more than six months, were first issued the cancellation notices and then their registrations were cancelled as per standard operating procedure,” one of the officials said.
The Tax officers have been directed to follow up personally with these defaulting taxpayers so that their GSTR-3B returns due for the month are filed by November 30.
The push for better compliance comes on the heels of the tax department’s nationwide drive against fake invoice scams. It is suspected that fraudsters often register firms under GST but remain mostly dormant on compliance while using the status to claim invalid input tax credit (ITC).
As per the sources, in the Ahmedabad zone 11,048 GST registrations have been cancelled. In the Chennai zone, 19,586 suo motu cancellations have been done so far in respect of GST taxpayers who have failed to file returns for more than six months.
The officials said that the tax authority is also scanning newly registered entities that have not provided correct details at the time of registration.
Out of 720 deemed registrations granted between August 21 and November 16 this year, where Aadhaar authentication was not done, 55 deemed registrations have been identified for the discrepancy and the process of cancellation was initiated in these cases.
