Empanelment of CAs/Cost Accountants for Special GST Audit

The Office of the Commissioner of CGST and Central Excise (Audit) Thane is inviting online Expressions of Interest (EOIs) for the empanelment of Chartered Accountants and Cost Accountants. This is for conducting special audits of GST-registered persons as mandated under Section 66 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017. Interested candidates must submit their EOIs online through the Central Public Procurement Portal, with the submission deadline set for October 27, 2024. Eligible applicants should have at least five years of experience, be registered with the relevant professional institutes, and meet specific compliance criteria. The selection will be based on various parameters, including experience, turnover, and audit assignments completed. The appointed auditors will examine the financial records of GST registered persons to ensure compliance and report findings within a stipulated timeframe. Non-compliance with the eligibility criteria or misconduct may result in cancellation of empanelment. The panel will be valid for two years, with opportunities for new firms to join based on need.

Office of the Commissioner of CGST and Central Excise, (Audit) Thane,
CGST Bhavan, Accel House, 4’h Floor, Road No.22, Wagle Industrial Estate, Thane (W)-400 604

Request for Expression of Interest (EOIs)
For
Empanelment of Chartered Accountants/Chartered
Accountant Firms/ Cost Accountants/Cost Accountant
Firms, for Special Audit of GST registered persons under
Section 66 of the Central Goods & Services Tax Act, 2017

Commissioner, CGST & C. Ex., Audit Thane, Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance invites online Expression of Interest (EOI) for empanelment of Chartered Accountants, Chartered Accountant firms, Cost Accountants and Cost Accountant firms for conducting special audit of accounts of GST Registered persons as envisaged under Section 66 of the Central Goods and Service Tax Act, 2017.

EOI is to be submitted only online on the Central Public Procurement Portal at https://eprocure.gov.in.

The EOI document can be downloaded from the Central Public Procurement Portal athttps://eprocure.gov.in. The last date of submission of EOI is 27-10-2024 (Time 06.00 PM).

The critical date sheet is as under:-

Note: If any due date happens to be a holiday then the next working day will be the due dateat the same time.

This issues with approval of the Commissioner, CGST & C. Ex., Audit Thane.

(DEEPAK D. GANGURED)
Deputy Commissioner
(Admin) CGST & C. Ex. Audit Thane

F. No. GADT/I/(22)/380/2021- ADMN-I- 0/0 COMMR-CGST-ADT-THANE

THANE: 07.10.2024

Copy to:

1. To be published on the official website of Central Public Procurement Portal at https://eprocure.gov.in

2. To be published on the official website of the CBIC, Government of India,

3. The notice board of the Commissionerate, CGST & C. Ex., Audit Thane,

4. The notice board of the PCCO, CGST & C. Ex., Mumbai Zone, Churchgate,

5. The institute of Chartered Accountant of India, ICAI Bhavan, Indraprastha Marg, Post Box No.7100, New Delhi – 110002,

6. The institute of Chartered Accountants of India (Western Regional Office), ICAI Tower, Plot No.C-40, G-Block, Opp. MCA Academy, Besides Standard Chartered Bank, Bandra-Kurla Complex, Bandra (East), Mumbai – 400051 (Email – [email protected]),

7. The institute of Cost Accountants of India, 12, Sudder Street, Kolkata – 700016,

8. The institute of Cost Accountants of India, Western India Regional Count

Sale, Rohit Chambers, 4^th Floor, Janambhumi Marg, Fort, Mumbai – 400001 (Email – [email protected] /[email protected])

(The institute of Chartered Accountants of India and the Institute of Cost Accounts of India are requested to give vide publicity of the above expression of interest among their members.)

Copy for information to:-

1. The Additional Commissioner (Admin), PCCO, CGST & C.Ex., Mumbai. He is requested to arrange to publish this notice on the official website of CBIC, Government of India

NOTICE FOR EXPRESSION OF INTEREST

Sub: Empanelment of Chartered Accountants / Chartered Accountant firms L Cost Accountants / Cost Accountant firms for Audit of GST registered persons.

Attention of practicing Chartered Accountants, Chartered Accountant firms, Cost Accountants and Cost Accountant firms is invited to the provisions of Section 66 of the Central Goods and Service Tax Act, 2017. Office of the Commissioner of CGST & C. Ex., Audit Thane, Mumbai proposes to prepare a panel of Chartered Accountants / Chartered Accountant firms / Cost Accountants and Cost Accountant firms for conducting Special Audit of accounts of GST Registered persons as envisaged under the said Section.

1. Eligibility:- In order to be eligible for to be empanelled for the said audit, a person / Firm should fulfill the following conditions :-

The applicant firm/person should –

i. Be a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India / Institute of Cost Accountants of India and should have valid full time Certificate of practice issued by the respective institutes;

ii. Possess experience of at least five years of practice as Chartered Accountant / Cost Accountant;

iii. The applicant or any partner / proprietor of the applicant firm having experience and practice as stated above should not have indulged in any unethical professional practice or professional misconduct including moral turpitude;

iv. The applicant or any partner / proprietor of the applicant firm should not have been held guilty of any professional misconduct under the Cost and Works Accountant Act, 1956 (as amended) or Chartered Accountants Act, 1949 (as amended) during past five years or penalized under Chapter V of the Finance Act, 1994 or Central Excise Act, 1944 or Customs Act, 1962 or Maharashtra Value Added Tax Act, 2002 or the Central/IGST/Maharashtra Goods and Service Tax Act, 2017;

v. The applicant or any partner / proprietor of the applicant firm should not be facing any investigation or enquiry by the CBIC or Govt. of Maharashtra or any of its subordinate offices for any violations under the Chapter V of the Finance Act, 1994 or Central Excise Act, 1944 or the Customs Act, 1962 or the Maharashtra Value Added Tax Act, 2002 or the Central/IGST/Maharashtra Goods and Service Tax Act, 2017;

vi. The location of the office of the applicant/partner/proprietor having experience as stated above who is incharge of such office should be in the city of Thane or Mumbai or MMRDA Region.

2. Selection Procedure and other terms:- The selection will be as follows-

A. All the applications received up to the last date for filing of application shall be scrutinized in terms of criteria/guidelines issued in this regard. The basic criteria for selecting the applicant would be the experience in audit/consultancy/representation in the Income Tax, Central Excise, Service Tax, VAT and GST matters, turnover, staff strength, audit experience etc. The detailed evaluation criteria would be as follows:-

a. Applicant’s existence in years after its registration (Provide copy of certificate of registration with Institute of Chartered Accountants of India/Institute of Cost Accountants of India):-

i. More than 5 years but less than 10 years : 60%

ii. 10 years or more but less than 15 years : 75%

iii.15 years or more : 100%

(The above criterion carries 15 Marks.)

b. Applicant(s) empanelment as auditor with anyone of the following departments during the last 7 years (Provide copy of order / letter of empanelment with the Department(s)):-

i. Formations of Income Tax Department

ii. Custom Commissionerates

iii. Central Excise and Service Tax Commissionerates

iv. Department of Value Added Tax

v. Commissionerates of Goods & Services Tax

(The above criterion carries 4 Marks in case of one (01) department, 7 Marks for two (02) departments, 11 Marks for three (03) departments and maximum 15 Marks for four (04) or more departments.)

c. Applicant(s) average annual turnover in last three financial years (Provide copies of full Income tax returns & Financial Accounts for the last three financial years):-

(The above criterion carries 15 Marks.)

d. No. of Audit Assignments of Internal / Statutory / Forensic Audit of Corporate / PSUs entities, except Bank Branch Audit, for which the audit has been done in the last 5 years (Provide copy of order of assignment of such Audit):-

(The above criterion carries 15 Marks.)

e. Applicant(s) or any partner(s) / proprietor of the applicant firm(s) / professional(s) office profile with staff strength of at least 5 (excluding typist, stenographers, computer operators, secretaries and subordinate staff etc.) consisting of audit and article clerks with the knowledge in book-keeping and accountancy and are engaged in outdoor audit (Provide details of staff engaged alongwith their names, educational qualification, date of engagement, contact details etc.):-

i. More than 20 : 100%

ii. More than 10 but less than or equal to 20 : 75%

iii. 5 or more but less than or equal to 10

(The above criterion carries 15 Marks.)

f. Applicant should submit brief approach paper (not exceeding 3000 words) covering the following:-

i. Areas and Challenges in the special audit of registered person under Goods & Services Tax Act, 2017.

ii. Technical parameters / approach to assess compliance of various provisions of the CGST Act, 2017 by the registered person.

iii. Proposed methodologies to analyze & evaluate compliance on technical parameters.

iv. Proposed work plan for responding to the Scope of work.

v. Proposed solutions / methodology for a special audit for ensuring time bound determination of statutory liabilities of registered person.

vi. Proposed innovations in analysis, audit and follow up action for successful conclusion of such special audit through discharge of financial liabilities by registered person.

(The above criterion carries 25 Marks.)

B. The minimum qualifying marks will be 50 based on the above evaluation criteria. The number of empanelment’s will depend upon the applications received and the requirement of this office. Based on the evaluation of this pilot, the decision for further empanelment would be taken.

C. Out of empanelled candidates, audit would be allotted to the firms / person as and when required by this office at the sole discretion of the Commissioner, CGST & C. Ex., Audit Thane, Mumbai. Their performance would be monitored by examining the quality and findings of audit reports submitted by them.

D. The panel so made above shall be in force for a period of two years. However, in case of necessity, new person / firm can be added in the panel by following the prescribed procedure.

E. The empanelment of the Auditor will stand cancelled, without any prejudice to alleviable legal / other remedy / recourse in the event of any of the followings:-

i. If the empanelment has been obtained on the basis of false information / mis­statement.

ii. If the Auditor does not take up the Audit in terms of the appointment / allotment letter.

iii. If the Auditor fails to maintain / honour confidentiality & secrecy in all respect.

iv. If the Auditor fails to comply with any of the eligibility criteria / other terms &conditions.

v. If the Auditor fails to provide the audit reports and mandated inputs of requisite quality within prescribed time.

vi. If the auditor, after empanelment, ceases to be the member / registrant with Institute of Chartered Accountants of India/Institute of Cost Accountants of India

3. Scope of Work :- The Special Audit shall be conducted by the Special Auditor under Section 66 of Central Goods and Service Tax Act, 2017. He shall examine and audit the records & books of accounts of the registered person. He shall check and verify the compliance of the provisions of CGST Act, 2017, IGST Act, 2017 & MGST Act, 2017 and Rules made there under by the registered person including the correctness of turnover declared, input tax credit availed, taxes paid, refund claimed etc. and detect the tax evasion, if any, by the registered person. He shall submit his report within the prescribed period as per sub section 2 of section 66 of the CGST Act 2017. In case the registered person does not accept the findings of the Special Audit and consequent tax liability, interest etc. & contests the same by way of appeal, the auditor will render all required assistance / advice in the matter to protect the interest of the government in such appeals.

4. Duties and obligations :- The person / Firm so nominated to act as special auditor shall have the following duties and obligations :-

i. The audit shall be conducted as per the Terms of Reference & within the prescribed time limit.

ii. The auditor may be required to visit the offices including branch office / head office of GST registered person to conduct the Audit of GST and to call for and examine the required documents.

iii. The Audit shall be conducted in coordination with the departmental officers. In other words, the departmental officer may also join the audit team of the nominated Chartered Accountants/ Cost Accountants to conduct the audit.

iv. The auditor, within the period specified by the Commissioner, CGST & C. Ex., Audit Thane, shall submit a report of such audit duly signed and certified by him. The audit report shall provide full details of audit, including the audit plan, details of documents verified, result of verification, short levy / wrong availment of Input Tax credit etc. duly quantified and with their observations. Duly authenticated copies of sample documents shall also be enclosed with audit report for taking further action by the department.

v. The nominated person / firm should not have represented or advised in any manner the registered person whose audit is ordered by the department in any area like maintenance of accounts, auditing, tax consultancy, any other consultancy, representation etc. and therefore should not be in conflict of interest position. This aspect would be verified while assigning a particular registered person for audit and a certificate in this regard would have to be submitted by the appointed empanelled special auditor before accepting the special audit.

vi. Maintain confidentiality in all respect related to special audit assigned to him and should not disclose / share any sensitive / confidential information / documents etc. to the registered person / any outsider.

vii. On receipt of audit report, department may call the auditor for seeking any clarification or ask them to complete audit, if it is found that particular area has not been examined properly.

viii In case the registered person does not accept the findings of the Special Audit and consequent tax liability, interest etc. and contests the same by way of appeal, the auditor will render all required assistance / advice in the matter to protect the interest of the government in such appeals.

ix. The empanelled Chartered Accountants and the Cost Accountants shall give an undertaking at the time of allotment of units that they will not take up Statutory Audit of the said units allocated to them for special audit and also during the period they are on the panel of CGST, Audit Thane.

x. The auditor will not associate any junior staff for the Audit purpose except with due approval of such person with equivalent qualification & experience by the Department in writing.

5. Schedule of Fees: The Chartered Accountants/ Chartered Accountant firms/Cost Accountants/ Cost Accountant firms would be entitled to a fees depending upon the size of the unit whose Special Audit has been conducted. The amount of such fees payable is as indicated below:-

The payment of fee to the extent of 80% will be released on satisfactory conclusion of Special Audit and after issuance of information of findings upon Special Audit in Form GST ADT-04 to the registered person. Rest 20% of the fee will be released either on discharge of statutory liabilities towards tax, interest etc., determined on the basis of Special Audit report, if any, by the registered person or after rendering of all required assistance/advice by the auditor during the first stage appeal in case the registered person prefers to contests the findings of Special Audit, whichever is earlier.

6. General :-

i. It is the sole discretion of the Commissioner, CGST & C. Ex., Audit Thane to select any of the Chartered Accountants / Cost Accountants from the panel for conducting the Special Audit.

ii. This office reserves the right to remove name of any of the Chartered Accountants / Cost Accountants from the panel so made, after making enquiries as deemed fit and such decision would be final.

iii. This office also reserves the right to cancel / withdraw the expression of interest without assigning any reason whatsoever.

7. Last Date and Time for Submission and Opening of the EOI

i. EOI is to be submitted only online on the Central Public Procurement Portal at https:// eprocure.gov.in.

ii. If any due date in the Critical date sheet happens to be a holiday then the next workingday will be the due date at the same time.

iii. Office of the Commissioner, CGST & C. Ex., Audit Thane may, at its discretion, extend the last date and time for submission of EOI and / or date and time of opening of EOI by issuing corrigendum/addendum.

8. Submission of E01

i. EOI shall be received only online on the Central Public Procurement Portal at https://eprocure.gov.in.

ii. The applicant has to follow the Instructions as available at https://eprocure.gov.in and instructions given by the department.

iii. The applicant has to upload the duly filled and signed Performa as at Annexure-A.

iv. The applicant has to upload duly filled and signed Annexure-B as well as all the self certified documents as per Annexure-B.

v. The intending Applicants are advised to visit Central Public Procurement Portal at https://eprocure.gov.in regularly till closing date of submission of EOI for any corrigendum/addendum/amendments.

vi. There is no cost of the EOI document.

vii. The pre-proposal meeting date/time, EOI submission start date/time, EOI submission end date/time and the EOI opening date/time will be as per as critical date-sheet. List of the empanelled applicants will be displayed on Central Public Procurement Portal at https://eprocure.gov.in and on the office board of this office on finalisation.

viii. Any documents for eligibility/qualification not mentioned in the annexures shall be attached separately.

9. PRE-PROPOSAL MEETING

The pre-proposal meeting will be held by the Office of the Commissioner, CGST & C. Ex.,

Audit Thane on 18-10-2021 at (3.00 PM) in the Conference Hall, 3^rd Floor, CGST Bhawan, ACCEL House, Road No. 22, Wagle Industrial Estate, Thane- 400604 for resolution of any issue, clarifications etc.

10. ASSISTANCE TO APPLICANTS

For any queries relating to the process of online EOI submission or queries relating to

Procurement portal, the applicants may contact Shri Deepak D. Gangurde, Deputy

Commissioner(Admin) at

Telephone: 9768634874 (Monday-Friday, 09:30 AM to 06.00

PM) Or mail at the email Id [email protected]

For any technical related queries please call at 24 x 7 Help Desk Number

+91 0120-4200462,

+91 0120-4001002,

+91 0120-4001005 and

ANNEXURE-A

PROFORMA FOR APPLICATION FOR EMPANELMENT AS SPECIAL AUDITOR WITH THE OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER OF CGST & C. EX.. AUDIT THANE. MUMBAI

ANNEXURE -B

CHECKLIST OF DOCUMENTS TO BE SCANNED & SENT ALONG WITH “EOI”

Note:- In case, any of the above documents is not available, then applicant may specify so on a separate paper, duly signed and upload the same against the said document.

ANNEXURE -C

ANNEXURE-D

ANNEXURE-E

DECLARATION

I …………………………………………………………. Proprietor/Partner of M/s………………………………………………………………….. do hereby declare the information/details etc. submitted in/along with Expression of Interest application are true and correct to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Dated :

Signature

Place: