Charter for Chartered Accountants under FCRA 2010Â
Since the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 (FCRA, 2010) is national security legislation; associations are required to exercise extreme care and caution in dealing with foreign contribution from the time of its receipt to its final utilization. As the Chartered Accountants audit the accounts of the associations and certify the accounts before submission to the Government, they are required to provide proper guidance to the associations who are either applying for grant of prior permission/registration or who have been granted prior permission/registration under FCRA, 2010. The Chartered Accountants are requested to get themselves thoroughly familiarised with FCRA, 2010 and the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Rules, 2011 (FCRR, 2011), amendments and notifications issued from time to time so that they can help the associations:
• To verify whether the associations are eligible to receive foreign contribution.
• To guide the applicant organization in submission of application for registration/prior permission;
• To ensure that the association receives and utilises the foreign contributions through its bank account exclusively opened for the purpose in accordance with the provisions of FCRA, 2010 and FCRR, 2011 and that foreign contribution is not deposited or utilised from the bank account being used for domestic funds.
• To assist in the proper maintenance of prescribed books of accounts in accordance with the provisions of FCRA, 2010 and FCRR, 2011;
• To ensure that the annual returns of an association have been prepared in accordance with the provisions of FC(R) Act, 2010 and FCRR, 2011 as amended from time to time.
Note: Statutory Form FC-4 for Annual Returns stipulates that CA shall certify that the association has utilised Foreign Contribution received for the purposes(s) it is registered/granted prior permission by the Government.
- Object of assessment proceedings is not to find empirically correct solution on every fact issue – HC
- Penalty u/s 270A deleted as assessee filed revised computation during scrutiny
- Penalty u/s 271B for unfilled column 40 in Tax Audit Report Form 3CD deleted by ITAT
- Merely ex-parte rectifying computation without amending assessment order not make it nullity- ITAT
- Once assessee discharges primary onus, it shifts to AO to bring evidence to contrary – ITAT

