President's Desk 

President’s Message | April 2020

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Dear Professional friends,

The month of March and April has been a month of challenge throughout the world, especially when the word battles the pandemic with full force.  The data is so rapidly changing that science behind this rapid spread, containment and medicine is still distantly unseen. The cascading effect may be catastrophic to all the industries. The government interim relief package tried to dose the initial anxiety to businessmen but is still felt as uncooked by economist. The intent of any government will be to wait and watch, I’m hopeful that government would scale up the game to fight with same rigour to save the economy from its tailspin. We all agree that labour market would be deeply impacted and those with marginal incomes are the ones to whom the impact would be substantially high. From the business side, all those industries which had higher fixed expense, those whose elasticity to collection is high etc are severely impacted. The CA practice for all of us may also be not same, considering that many of us are involved in backend part of the business and would be negatively impacted, in terms of trimming of fees and higher unproductive fixed cost.

I also believe that prevailing and existing technology had enabled us to use work from home, reduce commutation/travel but the force to change was missing amongst us, the epidemic among few positive changes has also forced to use the technologies like, cloud storage, VPN, Webinars, video conference etc. We may have to embrace technology like never before to improve quality, optimise time or improve the horizon of work.

KSCAA had taken a pledge to serve 8,000 meals to underprivileged and stranded workers in Bengaluru area and the response to such pledge was overwhelmingly received, we collected all of this within 24 hours. The team of volunteers from KSCAA had been to place of distribution and the plight at distribution was heart wrenching to see and experience. I’m told by the volunteers that many proceeded to acknowledge the noble gesture of feeding with gratitude and admiration. I’m must place on record that these types of engagement get us close to society and I’m privileged to have presided when such noble causes are carried through.

News Roundup

Goods and Service Tax

Due to COVID-19 pandemic and challenges faced by taxpayers, the Government has extended various GST compliance dates and also provided other reliefs as listed below:

  • Last date for filing GST annual returns of FY 18-19 extended till the last week of June 2020.
  • Last date for filing GSTR-3B due March, April, May 2020 returns and composition returns extended till last week of June 2020.
  • No interest, late fee or penalty for companies with less than Rs. 5 crore turnover; For the bigger companies, interest would be 9 per cent.
  • Last date for opting a composition scheme is extended till the last week of June 2020.
  • Payment date under Sabka Vishwas Scheme extended to June 30, 2020.
  • Cumulative adjustment of input tax credit under rule 36(4) is allowed for months Feb-20 to Sep-20 while filing 3B of Sep-20.

Corporate and Business Law

MCA has recently issued a circular for providing an opportunity to companies to file pending documents, statements and returns etc., Companies who have failed to file any document, statement, return etc., including annual statutory documents (AOC-4, MGT-7) can make good their failures by filing them now by paying only normal fees applicable. No Additional fees shall be payable.  The timeline provided for this opportunity is 1st April 2020 to 30th September 2020.

Conclusion

I’ve liked this phrase ‘This too shall pass’ meaning, we are faced with challenges and the outcome of them may be some favourable to us or not favourable to us. But the eternal called the being must proceed to move ahead in life. Nothing stays too long; the cycle goes on. Good times come to an end. So do the bad ones. Today, where there is sorrow, there may be joy tomorrow and where there is jubilation, there may be mournful silence. Man can bear anything if he sets his mind to it, even the harshest of times. Just the hope of a better tomorrow is what keeps us going. It says, “keep your head steady, this hardship which you are going through, shall too, come to an end, one day or the other”.

This too shall pass. Stay healthy and safe!

Yours Sincerely,

Chandrashekara Shetty
President