A chartered accountant firm and chartered accountant limited liability partnerships (LLPs) in India can apply for empanelment with the office of Comptroller and Auditor General or CAG of India for allotment of audit of Public Sector Undertakings or Statutory Corporations for the year 2016-17.
Even state government departments will be asking for CAG empanelment letter while allotting audit for their state government’s works.
To apply for CAG empanelment, the CA firm or LLP must have at least one full time FCA partner as on 1st January 2016 of the year for which the application is to be submitted. If it’s a sole proprietorship CA firm then to apply the sole proprietor must be a full time FCA as on 1st January 2016.
This means, for empanelment of CA firms or LLPs with CAG for the year 2016-2017, the CA firm or LLP must have at least one FCA as on 1st January 2016. Similarly, while applying for the financial year 2017-2018, the CA firm or LLP must have at least one FCA as on 1st January 2017.
The FCA partner as on 1st January must satisfy the income criteria fixed by CAG. For more details on income criteria please read how CA firms are selected as statutory auditor of PSUs and Income criteria requirements of a FCA.
For the financial year 2016-2017, CAG of India has already started accepting applications online from 1st January 2016 till 15th February 2016 on the website.
Update:- Last date of filing online application for 2016-17 has been extended to 22 February 2016. Please remember, last date for receipt of documents at O/o C&AG is 15th March, 2016 which would not be extended.
CA firms or LLPs can apply or update their data as per the status of their firm as on 1st January 2016 and generate online acknowledgement letter for the current financial year 2016-2017.
This means, new CA firms or LLPs are required to be registered and CA firms or LLPs that are already empaneled with the CAG’s office need only to modify the information that is already available in the application format for changes if any, reflecting the status of such firms as on 1st January 2016.
Please remember to fill up e-mail ids and mobile numbers correctly as userid/password will be sent to registered email ids and mobile numbers.
Data submitted to CAG should match with ICAI record to get the application processed. If any of the information so furnished is later found to be not correct or false or there has been suppression of material information, the firm would stand disqualified from empanelment/allotment of audit for 3 to 5 years and might also be liable for disciplinary action under the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949 and the regulations framed there-under.
After submission of online application with CAG, the CA firm or LLP will be required to furnish following documents to reach the office of CAG by 15th march 2016;
- Online acknowledgement letter for the year 2016-17 generated at the time of filing online application.
- Statement I: Undertaking signed by the sole proprietors/partners of the firm/LLP as per format.
- Statement II: Signature of CA employees of the firm/LLP
- Copy of the Income Tax return of the firm along with computation for the assessment year 2015-16 including distribution of income to partners.
- Income tax return for the assessment year 2015-16 of those CA employees who have joined as partners in the firm after 1st April 2014.
- Copy of the annual accounts of the firm for the financial year 2014-15 along with schedules indicating the distribution of income among the partners.
- Statement-III Details of service tax paid by the firm/LLP
- In case of CISA qualified members, copy of the final CISA certificate granted by the “Information Systems Audit and Control Association” after successfully meeting all requirements.
- Duly filled up check list of the documents as per format. (To be placed on the top).
- Self addressed acknowledgement form for receipt of documents as per format.
Above documents has to be sent to;
Director General (Commercial)-I, Office of the Comptroller & Auditor General of India,10, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi-110002.
On the top of the envelope containing the documents, the following should be stated “Application for empanelment of CA firms/LLPs with office of the CAG of India”
After empanelment, the CA firm will be eligible for appointment as auditor of Government companies or corporation for the year 2016-2017.
A provisional panel will be available on the CAG website during the last week of April 2016 indicating the position of empanelment of the firm. Representation, if any, for clerical mistake in the online data only will be accepted up to 5th May 2016.
The representations will be considered on merit on case to case basis. No representation of any kind will be entertained after 5th May 2016.
All members (sole proprietors/partners/ CA employees) will get points if they were exclusively associated with the firm throughout the calendar year immediately preceding the year of empanelment.
In case of merger, the partners of the merging firms will be assigned points after one year of merger and points for partner’s association to be given after five years from the date of merger.
How to know C&AG empanelment status of CA firm
CAG empanelment status can be known with the help of CA firm name or Online acknowledgement number generated after filing the application form with CAG or with the CAG’s empanelment number or by entering firm station.
Here is the link to know the empanelment status online.
If you want to know the list of CA firms empanelled with CAG for a particular locality then you can do so by selecting the place for which you want to find the list. One can also generate and print empanelment letter.
After submitting your application, you can login to your account with UserID and password.
GOOD INFORMATION