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Recently CA fraternity has been allegedly criticized by a Pr. CIT from Pune and this made me think whether we Chartered Accountants (CAs) have become a Punching Bag in India? Can we be held responsible for any wrong-doing in India? If any Government implemented policy fails, we CAs are held responsible for its failure. Demonetization fails- CA Responsible. GST implementation having issues- CAs exaggerating the problems to increase their fees.

Politicians are involved in corruption cases. However, for the inquiry of that corruption against the politician, guess who the police will arrest first? If you think police will arrest politician first than you are absolutely wrong. They will arrest the politician’s CA first to inquire about fraud/ corruption committed by the politician. In fact, it is quite possible that the police may not arrest the politician at all. Example is the recent arrest of a CA of a Bihar based politician by CBI.

Pure Boxing The Man Punching Bag

Image Source- Amazon

If things keep moving this way than we CAs are not far away from a time when even if someone’s dog gets misplaced, his CA will be held responsible. A CA has to pray to God that nothing wrong happens with his clients. Else, he may be  held responsible for any wrongdoing by his client. Soon we may see a situation that even if a client falls ill, the doctor may held his CA Primarily Responsible for that illness.

Coming back to the topic, as per the news published in Marathi News Paper in Maharashtra recently, it is alleged by Shri. A. C. Shukla, Pr. Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, Pune said that tax compliance by public at large is being hampered due to the negative mindset of Chartered Accountants and Tax Consultants. See the scanned relevant extract of Newspaper-

CAs hampering Tax Collection

After outrage on this issue in Social Media, the Income Tax Department Nashik has issued a statement that Shri. A. C. Shukla, Pr. Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, Pune did not make any such statement and clarified that he in fact advised the Chartered Accountants and Tax Consultants to proactively encourage the public at large to improve their tax compliance. As per the clarification issued by the Dept, the Pr. CIT said that the Role of CAs is very important in the mission of nation building.

We have to accept that ICAI is  slowly losing its professional reputation and glory today. ICAI Council needs to raise the issues of its members and also to come forward to help CAs when anything wrong happens with any of its member. We Chartered Accountants are only busy in raising issues of our clients and get criticized for that. But about our own well being?

Why can’t we demand treatment at par with Advocates? Why a CA gets arrested for advising his client but an advocate does not get arrested even for defending a terrorist? Why can’t we issue a statement against the person who criticizes us from a Public forum for no mistake of ours under a wrong notion for his own policy failures?

As I did not attended the Session, I cannot comment which version is correct i.e. version of Print Media or Version of Income Tax Department. But one thing is for sure that We Chartered Accountants and our premier body Institute of Chartered Accountants of India need to take some serious steps very soon to change this mentality and to safeguard our interests. I hope the elected ICAI members will work at war level for maintaining the pride of ICAI and its members and have courage to raise their voice against any wrong-doing with its members.

Press Release by Income Tax Department Nashik is as follows :-

Press Release by Nashik IT Dept on Role of CAs in Tax Collection

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16 Comments

  1. Alex D'Mello says:

    It’s unfortunate that most of our illiterate law makers make laws for the educated citizens. One can make out from the recent party jumping exercise. One can be most corrupt but when he joins the ruling party (even in the past) all his sins are washed away. They create all sorts of mischief and it’s finally the CA who is blamed for their financial mess

  2. KARUNAKAR TOTA says:

    Even the Prime Minister was wrong in making a general statement blaming the entire fraternity of CA’s, for the wrong doing of very very few CA’s, who are much below than 0.5 % of the total fraternity

  3. CA. S.C.Podder says:

    Definitely CAs are responsible for wrong doing – Most of us are not follow the directives issued by our institute . Most of us does not have any set programme to conduct any assignment – we are responsible not only to clients buy also various stake holders . we we can’t / unable to furnish . Can we furnish our working pares and programme with this appeal ? no not all . We assume ourselves as ATM cards , go, see the situation flash our membership card ( Rubber stamps ) signed , delivered – raise bill ( not in many cases ) take the money by cash . As one of the senior most members of ICAI since 1970 . I have opportunities to see/ witnessed in various capacities CA are not doing their job as directed by the Institute , I have the opportunity to see that we are not discharged our duties and obligations , we I conducted ” Peer Review “and Bank statutory audit, audit of PSUs either in the capacity as partners and /or as a proprietor . Reviewers of attestation services rendered by CA firms , They does not bother to keep minimum records of the services , Tax audit. Bank statutory audit conducted with in 3 days – after getting appintment letters , Staff were not adequately trained even we are not efficiently trained – ( Please refer his or her CPE attendances . If attendance are uploaded can they show the seminar materials to the Institute / or other authorities , we are not refer the various web-sites on regular basis , ( suppose Tax Guru, ICAI. RBI . Income tax and other websites to updates ourselve. Why ICAI wants Financial statements when we applied for MEF – ? Simple thing that we are manipulated our own financial statements which are not accepted by any body/ authority.
    CAs are taking money for train articled assistants issues account payee cheque after getting cash from those Assistants .
    So foth and so on . Before pointing fingers to others please analyze / find out our mistakes.
    Mrn : 012073 ( 1970 )

  4. B Vijaya Kumar says:

    Ours is perhaps the only profession, wherein the client pays to the auditor to report his wrong doings, if any, to the other stake holders. The Government officials get paid handsomely and yet many are corrupt but our members have to earn bread by reporting against the client. This is a serious flaw in our system, though started with a good intention like self reporting. Now this needs to be corrected by appointing the auditors of listed companies only through empanelment by SEBI and making joint audits compulsory for corporates with turnover greater than Rs 1000 Cr atleast, to begin with and fixing the scale of fees for the audits.
    Secondly, we do not have either job or social security. We get paid usually only after the audit is completed and this requires working capital. We need to have an audit protection fund, wherein an auditor may get compensated for the loss of remuneration, if he/she has to resign as auditor due to audit related issues. Every case of resignation by an auditor and removal of an auditor must be satisfactorily explained to the ICAI by the auditor/client.
    The profession also needs to be disciplined further – self discipline at the ICAI level is needed but regulatory mechanism needs to be strengthened with proactive measures like maintenance of register for audit reports and certificates issued by the members, who need to upload their reports/certificates within one month from the date of issue. This will ensure that the ICAI is able to monitor the number audit reports issued by the members and quality of reporting is maintaining by peer -reviewing such reports.
    The next one is to make it compulsory for the government agencies to stop tendering for audit services and get them done only through the empanelment and pay the fees as per the scale of fee fixed by the ICAI.

  5. S G Parasramka says:

    Please ask the Pr CIT Mr A C Shukla as to why do they not recommend deletion of clause 10(17) from the Income Tax Act which exempts perks and allowances of politicians who get handsomely paid in this nature without requiring to pay tax. If Reliance Jio is offering unlimited calls for mere less than Rs 300/- every politician get Rs. 15000/- in allowance per month. Can see the rationale behind this largesse conferred on the politicians.

  6. j r kota says:

    There is a saying that unless there is a fire, there wont’be smoke. Better make an introspection before speaking out. In the rat race to get a file or hold the brief we are falling head over heals to the whims and demands of the client. May be very few are there as an exception. But their success rate is very low. Please fight with the Institute for ensuring equitable distribution of professional work and
    justifiable remuneration (and not reasonable remuneration). Fight with the Institute for setting up reasonable standards for the well being of the professional fraternity and its strict compliance by the members and the Institute. For reason of professional ethics I cannot write on a public forum like this but there are several instances of unprofessional-ism shown by some of the members which can not dispel the impression in the society that CAs are to a large extent reason for the financial malaise in this country. With your good offices and stature please try and convince the wrong doers, if you come across any, not to do the same rather than find fault with a criticism which in all likely hood has a base.

  7. ASHWIN GALA says:

    We are master in analyzing. Analysis is done only after something already happened. Now To improve our position we need to be master in Pro activeness. We should be able to convince authorities to make assessees responsible. The laws & procedures need to be designed in such a way that the client comes first & then only CA. e.g. as per current law & procedure our audit report is uploaded first. Actually the law & procedure should provide that the assessees should upload the Accounts first with their sign. Audit report to be submitted 2 months after the submission of accounts by the assessee. This will automatically make the assessee responsible. Similar many such steps can be thought of.

  8. Prafull Chawda says:

    I think the IT Officials never check the Income Tax efiling portal, on this site IT dept declare the Tax amount collection during the period and the previous period. every quarter the tax collection increased by 15% of the corresponding period.

  9. CA SHIKHAR GARG says:

    Its all due to failure of top level ledership in our own ICAI. Some politician are not doing work in interest of CAs community rather showing off their personal image. Besides this there is no strong will power in CAs our self about UNITY and Slap to the society at large if they try to touches or marks a finger about our dignity.

  10. S R jairath says:

    Facts have been projected here only to hide the real deeds that take place. Thief crying thief is no solution. Better do some thing to remove the cancer of all kinds financial bungling.

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