ICAI- Issues & Recommendations

To

The President,

The Institute of Chartered Accountant of India.

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We as a CA, has the direct impact in generating revenue to Government of India(GOI) by means of various compliances, this is not just the single contribution to society (list is long). Recent News related to CA Profession was quite stressful, I would like mention few of them over here:

(1)???Removal of GST Audit

(2)???Intervention of NFRA

(3)???Notifying Standard of Auditing

(4)???Establishing the IIAs

All these issues are the indicators that ICAI requires a self-analysis to look for, where are the lacuna lies, what are our approaches to fix them. In this regard, by means of this post, would like to make some recommendations:

(1)???President’s office eligibility & tenure

(2)???Gap between Govt department & CA/CMA/CS

(3)???Articleship / Industrial training drives

(4)???Interview for CA Toppers to narrow down top 3

(5)???Information & Technology wings

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(1)???President’s office eligibility & term

Tenure: 2 years for 2 term

Eligibility: Once hold the President’s office of ICAI, surrender the COP for lifetime.

Reasoning: Longer tenure will provide long-term vision & accountability towards them, so that it enable us to conclude that in whose presidency what went good to great or even wrong. At the same time, Surrendering the COP will make this post more honorary & will ensure that information gather during term will not be used in its personal advantage.

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(2)???Gap between Govt department & CA/CMA/CS

Reasoning: I have recently attended the “Civil services orientation & mentorship programme for CA”. In the opening speech our honourable president mentioned their recent meeting with our Finance minister regarding issues related with “Formation of IIAs”. In the ongoing meeting finance minister mentioned “She is quite impressed with quality work of Finance Secretary.” And its turnout to be Finance Secretary is a Chartered Accountant.

Assuming, that was time when ICAI President hits with the Idea to mentorship programme as mentioned above.

In Another Incident, ICAI came up with “Mandate Peer Review” to ensure quality of work.

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If we closely analyze this move, we find that

If a person having both qualification that is great, being CA, they have the operational & technical knowledge and at the same time being a civil servant they have executory authority.

In nutshell, ICAI wants CA to be around the GOI & in different govt offices as well that is good, but they same time we have to look into different job positions that are in different department, that requires CA/CMA/CS. If this job positions are occupied with CA/CMA/CS that will result into two things

(a)???Better technical review by GOI and will lead to better/higher revenue collection for GOI.

(b)???Code of conduct by different institution will result into less corruption.

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We as qualified professionals hold different offices in corporate financial world like CFOs, Head of Finance/Direct Tax/Indirect Tax in various prestigious corporates, making every single day Individuals in compliant with laws, these are all possible just because we are possessing certain requisite technical skill sets that has been developed during N number of years.

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This is the time, ICAI need to recommend GOI, Change the exam pattern for job opportunity at different department like Income Tax, GST, MCA and can mandate exam for Income Tax Laws & required work experience if they are hiring for Income tax (even for qualified CA/CMA/CS), accordingly for GST & MCA. Changing the exam pattern & eligibility criteria to CA/CMA/CS would comparatively be easier to GOI than changing the laws. We always have “NO” in hands as a option, we need to take a initiative in a manner to make it happen.

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There is positive side to this as well for ICAI, We have witnessed that integrity of ICAI has been questioned even on 01st July 2017 or various other occasions, either by means of tussles with ICAI & different department of GOI or by public statement. ICAI has taken precautionary measures like “Mandate Peer Review”, based upon on going situation even this measure will also be questioned in near future, therefore:

(a)???CA Infront of CA(in Govt offices) will result into more quality work to GOI, this will restore the faith of GOI in ICAI.

(b)???Work of CA checked by another CA, result into peer review and this is look like controls in place, is done by GOI.

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This will enhance the quality of work and later on numbers & data will speak for themselves.

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(3)???Articleship / Industrial training drives

Just like CA Campus Placement, articleship/Industrial training need to be done more organised & in responsible manner, there are various issues has been observed that need to be addressed:

(a)???Student who chooses foundation route, having young age than college pass outs & are from different region, need special help to be placed at good firms for their articleship.

(b)???Since, Students are coming from different background, culture & region and at the same time, top 20 firms are being seen to be located into metro-cities, Most of the firms prefers local candidate than others.

We differentiate even CA on the basis of their attempts during CA Campus Placement, therefore Students who are coming in 4(a) needs special helping hands. For which we can use data analysis of the students based on weightage of their marks, age & attempts. Later on we can mentor “Younger age CA” for various other courses (Civil Servant).

Reason: Usually find out that abovementioned students having less communication skill, less maturity in that age than college pass outs. Once they will get good articleship environment they

will learn all these. (We should help them because of age adventage, they can serve better and longer period offcourse).

“Students are the future of ICAI, We must act upon grooming them now.”

(4)???Interview for CA Toppers to narrow down top 3

Whenever we as CA fails/ being wrong about opinion/decision, result into News. Toppers are those who is ambassador for the ICAI, we need to take interviews in order to avoid person who is making “Derogatory remark” on ICAI, just to gain viewership/followership, since it has been observed in past.

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(5)???Information Technology wings

Each & every country is now a days is technology driven; India is not an exception to that. We have witnessed many technological advancements in various government website in recent days few examples are GST, Income tax, e-invoicing, E-way bill, requirement of audit trail tool in accounting packages, even auditing is also technology driven.

Big 4 are having capability to customize software pacakages as per requirement of regulation, Industry, cutomerwise etc. For small & medium firm, ICAI has to come forward with all together with separate, organised structure to provide atleast standard module of various software that can be useful in auditing & various other compliance, providing them monthly rental basis will generate the revenue to ICAI & at the same time help in maintaining the quality of work.

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Regards Sumit Kumar

(Chartered Accountant)

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PS: Author doesn’t intend to hurt or offend anyone, even though if anyone feels hurt or offensive, I am sincerely apologies for the same.