Pushing ahead with efforts to create homegrown big audit firms, ICAI plans to amend its Code of Ethics to provide more leeway for chartered accountants in terms of issuing advertisements and maintaining their own websites, among other activities.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) will release the exposure draft on the many changes proposed to the Code of Ethics, its President Charanjot Singh Nanda said at a briefing here on Friday.

The government has been pushing for building indigenous professional service giants, and free trade agreements with various countries also present expansion opportunities for Indian entities.

Currently, the Code does not permit networks to have their own websites.

The Chartered Accountants, the Cost and Works Accountants and the Company Secretaries (Amendment) Bill, 2021 was passed by Lok Sabha on Wednesday.

The Bill seeks to amend the existing Chartered Accountants Act (ICAI), 1949, the Cost and Works Accountants Act, 1959 and the Company Secretaries Act 1980. The Bill is aimed at providing mechanism for dealing with the cases of misconduct in the three professional institutes, namely, the ICAI, the Institute of Cost Accountants of India and the Institute of Company Secretaries of India and “with a view to strengthening the existing mechanism and ensure speedy disposal of the disciplinary cases.”

The Bill is also aimed at enhancing “accountability and transparency” by providing for audit of accounts of the institutes by a firm of chartered accountants to be appointed annually by the Council from the panel of auditors maintained by the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India.

The Central government is likely to amend the laws regulating the chartered accountancy profession to relax existing restrictions on advertising by these professionals and their firms, The Economic Times reported.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the report states that the move aims to help chartered accountants (CAs) promote their services more effectively, secure new assignments, and support business growth.

Move to ease advertising restrictions

Under the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949, CAs and their firms are permitted to advertise in a restricted manner through “write-ups”, subject to limitations on the font size and the use of photographs, among other restrictions. The proposed amendment aims to enable the emergence of large domestic firms capable of competing with global players and capturing a share of the $240-billion international auditing and consultancy market.

In an effort to plug the loopholes in social activities by corporates, accounting regulator Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has decided to come up a proper definition of corporate social responsibility (CSR). ICAI has set up a sub-committee to frame a clear definition of what would constitute as CSR. The recommendations of the panel will be forwarded to the corporate affairs ministry for approval. If the ICAI recommendations are accepted by the government, companies will have to invest in specific social projects to meet the requirements under the Companies Act. The need for defining CSR has been felt as corporate houses often invest in activities that may not be necessary at all, resulting in CSR losing its meaning and not giving the desired results. A proper definition will address the lacunae in the existing system.

Amid concerns of alleged ‘surrogate practices’ of the ‘big four’ accounting firms, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has asked PriceWaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, Ernst & Young and Deloitte to desist from acquiring Indian audit outfits. “Worldwide, there is a talk that there should be decongestion of accounting profession. So that’s what we have suggested them (the big four). Instead of acquiring firms, please provide work to small and medium practitioners and go in for quality control,” ICAI President Amarjit Chopra said.Chopra made these comments days before the regulator is set to give its third report on the Satyam scam to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. The report pertains to the alleged surrogate practice of the global auditing firms in India. Chopra, who is about to demit office on February 11, recently met representatives of the big four. “We advised them that rather than acquisition of Indian firms, go in for hand holding. It means they identify firms in each region and do the quality control,” he said.

The Satyam scam was not an accounting or auditing failure, but one of corporate governance, said Amarjit Chopra, president, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI). Speaking on the sidelines of an international taxation conference here on Monday, Chopra said, “There were promoter shareholders, executive directors and directors, and the auditors were the last rung. On the other side, there were independent directors, one of whom was a dean of the Indian School of Business, but nobody questions the role of independent directors.” Chopra also wanted the government to look at the role played by independent directors, saying one worthwhile suggestion by them could prevent such frauds. Chopra, however, conceded that chartered accountants too, should be more active to be seen as preventors, rather than facilitators of corruption. The objective of the profession is to reduce corruption, he added. ICAI, the regulatory body of chartered accountancy in the country, had reportedly found two PriceWaterhouse auditors, S Gopalakrishnan and Talluri Srinivas, prima facie guilty of professional misconduct. PriceWaterhouse was Satyam’s statutory auditor when the company's founder, B Ramalinga Raju, confessed to a massive accounting fraud in January 2009. The Central Bureau of Investigation, which investigated the Satyam fraud case, also charged the two auditors with “complicity in the commission” of the fraud by “consciously overlooking the accounting irregularities”.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) will introduce Unique Code Numbers (UCD) from next month for Chartered Accountants (CAs) to help them check increasing incidents of fraudulent practices, including forged attestations, ICAI President Amarjit Chopra said today. Once introduced, ICAI would ask banks to insist on UCD, as people file different balance sheets for various purposes without the knowledge or approval of CAs, he told reporters here. The institute is being assisted by the software giant Infosys in this endeavour, he said. He said ICAI, as part of 'Project Parivarthan' has initiated several operational process to meet global benchmarks.

Accounting regulator ICAI is opposed to the tendering process of selecting accountants for auditing state-run schemes and has taken up the issue with the Planning Commission and the CAG. The ICAI wants the appointment to be done through fixing the fees district-wise and not through tender saying it may lead to compromise of audit work. The appointment of auditors for scanning government schemes and projects is proposed to be done through tendering process, wherein the applicant quoting the lowest fees would get the project. However, according to the ICAI the appointment should rather be done through fixing the fees district-wise and not through tender as it may lead to compromise of audit work. "We had taken up the issue with the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and the Planning Commission. We have requested that the L1 (lowest bidding) factor in audit can kill the entire concept of the audit." "It is no good. We have requested them to fix the fees scheme wise to ensure that if at all bids are there, they should be technical rather than financial," said Amarjit Chopra, President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India . ICAI has suggested that the CAG could fix the fees scheme wise and choose auditors for these schemes district wise and has also provided the Planning Commission and the official auditor with a list of chartered accountant firms across the country.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that no immunity from prosecution can be granted to the members or nonmembers of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India for their professional misconduct under the provisions of the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949. Such provisions cannot override the penal laws, said apex court setting aside the order of the Madhya Pradesh HC. “The object underlying the prohibition contained in section 28 (Chartered Accountants Act) is to protect the persons engaged in profession of chartered accountants against false and untenable complaints from dissatisfied litigants and others. However, there is nothing in the language of the provisions contained in chapter VII from which it can be inferred that Parliament wanted to confer immunity upon the members and nonmembers from prosecution and punishment if the action of such member or nonmember amounts to an offence under the IPC or any other law” , said a bench comprising Justice GS Singhvi and Justice AK Ganguly.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), the national standard setting body of auditors, has proposed comprehensive changes to the current accounting practices in commercial banks to make bank audits foolproof and effective.The auditing restructure will imbibe the spirit of banking regulator Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) Know Your Customer (KYC) principles and help check financial frauds, identify money laundering and suspicious activities and scrutinise large cash transactions.

Accounting regulator Institute of Chartered Accountants of India is arranging easy financing schemes for its members through public sector banks, as it looks to help domestic audit firms enhance infrastructure and resource base to ward off competition from larger multinational rivals. ICAI has already entered into an arrangement with state-owned Corporation Bank, which will grant loans at liberal terms to small and medium firms, said an official with the regulator.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has unearthed cases of financial statements and audit reports of certain companies with forged signatures of auditors, sparking off fear of a larger menace that may have hit the country’s auditing fraternity. At a time when the government is going all out to set right the audit profession, cases of forged audit reports have put the regulator on the defensive.

The government is mulling a comprehensive code of conduct for financial analysts and investment bankers to make them more accountable to the companies and retail investors they serve. A proposal in this regard from a high-powered committee of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) that investigated the financial scandal at the erstwhile Satyam Computer Services is under the consideration of the ministry of corporate affairs.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has recommended strict penal action, including imprisonment, for auditors who are found associated with serious accounting frauds. It also wants the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to frame a code of conduct for financial analysts and investment bankers for better scrutiny of firms that may indulge in such illegal affairs.

India chartered accountants eyeing work opportunities abroad will soon be spoilt for choice, with their nodal agency, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, negotiating with its counterparts in Canada, Singapore and Ireland to allow the professionals to take up assignments in these countries. ICAI is in talks with the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Singapore and the Institute of Certified Public Accountants in Ireland, besides the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) to improve tax-payer services.The ICAI President, Mr Amarjit Chopra, and Vice-President, Mr G. Ramaswamy, said here today that the MoU is a step forward towards association of the ICAI with the Government.

The apex accounting body ICAI on Tuesday said it will set up centres for filing returns and tax-related documents electronically, a move that will help implement the proposed goods and services tax (GST) regime effectively. Under an agreement signed with Central Bureau of Excise and Customs (CBEC).

CHARTERED accountants, the nuts-andbolts professionals in the world of finance, are scoring brownie points over suave MBA finance graduates as India Inc gets increasingly risk-averse in a post-slowdown environment.Companies are focusing more on risk-compliance than pursuing ambitious targets as they recover from an 18-month economic downturn, paving the way for recruitment of more CAs, perceived to have core competence in financial matters.

The big four global accountancy firms — PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, Ernst & Young and Deloitte — are circumventing laws to provide auditing services in the country, says the report of an ICAI committee.“It has been noticed that multinational accounting firms (MAFs), entered through automatic/FIPB route for rendering consultancy services, are transgressing the permission so granted and are rendering taxation services, auditing, accounting and book-keeping and legal services,” the high-powered body probing the Satyam scam said.

The committee set up by the accounting regulator, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) to look into accounting loopholes exploited by the fraud-hit Satyam Computer to swindle investor money, has recommended action to be taken against Price Waterhouse and its auditors for disclosing information to an authorised audit firm — Lovelock & Lewes.The findings of the committee, headed by former president of ICAI Uttam Prakash Agarwal, states that though the statutory auditors of Satyam Computers was Price Waterhouse, however, in reality the audits were conducted by Lovelock & Lewes, thereby breaching the mandatory confidentiality clause that every practising chartered accountant needs to follow under the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949.