CAs grapple with tax audit woes

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Chartered Accountants are working overtime to ensure compliance with the new amendments to the tax audit forms. The amendments made by CBDT to tax audit form has met with opposition from CAs.

For example, dividend income does not attract tax in the case of a share broking firm. The form wants the CAs to certify how much expenditure has been incurred in earning such a dividend income and then disallow it. Tax consultants say certifying such a computation is unrealistic.

"Its a difficult situation because all investments are not maintained together.The bank accounts are a hotch potch of all activities together so to work out a direct linkage of expenditure or finance is a difficult situation for big corporations,"said Jitendra Sanghavi, Chartered Accountant.

The amendment also asks auditors to verify if corporates have deducted tax at source on all transactions, which CAs say is an impossible task.

"In case of big companies, where TDS is in huge volumes, there are numerous transactions.It may be impossible to verify each transaction and see if tax has been deducted or not," said Nihar Jambusaria, Former Chairman Western India at ICAI.

CAs say they need more time to file tax audit forms and hope the Finance Ministry will extend the October 31st deadline.