Cost accountants equipped to conduct tax audits, get 'accountant' status: ICMAI president
Cost accountants are equipped to conduct tax audits, a senior official of the Institute of Cost Accountants of India (ICMAI) said on Thursday, making a case for treating such professionals as accountants under the provisions of the new Income Tax Bill, amid opposition from the chartered accountants' body.
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Top institutes representing company secretaries and cost accountants this month approached the government to include their members as accountants under the I-T bill. Any such move would allow them to conduct lucrative tax audits that are currently undertaken by chartered accountants alone.
However, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India president Charanjot Singh Nanda on Wednesday opposed this demand. Audits, including tax-related ones, should be the sole preserve of chartered accountants, as they are trained mainly to handle these tasks, he added.
However, the ICMAI, which has about 1,00,000 members, has submitted a memorandum to the Select Committee of the Lok Sabha, seeking the accountant status. The committee is examining the Income Tax Bill, 2025.
«The demand for inclusion in the definition of accountants is backed by our expert knowledge through CMA (cost and management account) curriculum that extensively covers all areas of income tax, GST, accounts, banking, finance, cost and management accounting, auditing, IT, among others,»
