IT department to reject tax audit reports filed without ICAI authentication

Tax audit reports filed by businesses risks getting rejected by the Income Tax department if they are not authenticated by the professional regulator of chartered accountants, the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAI).

The tax department said on Thursday that the income tax e-filing portal has been linked with ICAI’s portal for validating the unique identification numbers (UIDN) chartered accountants generate for documents attested by them.

With the system level integration, the UDIN provided for the audit reports and certificates submitted by CAs in the e-filing portal will be validated online with the ICAI. “This will help in weeding out fake or incorrect tax audit reports not duly authenticated with the ICAI,” said the department.

CAs can also file the tax audit report or other certificates with the income tax department without the UIDN if they are not able to generate it but they have to generate the number and update the document within 15 days.

“If the UDIN for the audit report or certificate is not updated within the 15 days provided for the same, such audit report or certificate uploaded shall be treated as invalid submission,” said the department.

ICAI’ unique identification number is mandatory for every kind of certificate or tax audit report made by CAs. This was introduced to curb fake certifications by those posing as chartered accountants.