The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), New Delhi has emphasised on the need for the Union Government to simplify the tax compliances to attract foreign investments.
K. Raghu, Chairman of ICAI, during his visit to the Ballari Branch of ICAI, told presspersons here on Tuesday that the cost compliances in the country were very high. There was service tax, VAT, returns had to be filed quarterly and above all there was no tax stability with frequent variations.
“This (cost compliances) had to be reduced to encourage more investments in the country. ICAI has already written in this regard to the Union government and the response has been positive”, he said adding that as many as seventeen suggestions made in the previous year were accepted by the government.
ICAI had also suggested to the Union government to get the various welfare schemes like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), under implementation audited by the Chartered Accountants to ensure its proper implementation and utilisation of funds. “Comptroller and Auditor General conducts audit of all government transaction. It would be better for the government to consider getting the welfare schemes audited by chartered accountants”, he said.
Mr. K. Raghu informed that as part of the latest initiatives undertaken by the ICAI, four new certificate courses to promote specialisation among its members in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Financial Markets and Securities Law, Wealth Management and Financial Planning and Information Systems Security to enable them to become specialists in the emerging new age domains and tap the vast career opportunities in the respective fields.
Introducing ‘Flexi Working Portal for Women Members’, that provides them part time jobs or jobs with work-from-home option, campus placement programmes, organised twice in a year in the months of February - March and August-September, designing education and training schemes for students so as to produce competent professional CAs, formation of committee for review of education and training were among other initiatives undertaken by the ICAI, he said.
Four new examination centres were being opened in Tirunelveli (Tamil Nadu), Anantapur and Ongole (Andhra Pradesh), Dhule (Maharashtra) for the convenience of the students to appear for examinations effective from November 2014, he said.
Chairman Board of Studies, M. Deavaraj Reddy, Secretary ICAI, Cotha Srinivas, Chairman Ballari Branch, Lakshminarayan, were present among others.
