Income Tax Department to validate UDIN given by CA’s in Tax Audit Reports.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has been receiving a no. of complaints of fake signatures of CAs being forged by fake CAs , So, It was brought to the notice that financial documents or the certificates attested by the third person misconceiving themselves as CA are misleading the authorities and stakeholders. To resolve this problem and wrongdoing the ICAI committee implemented an innovative concept of UDIN Unique Documents Identification Number).

What is UDIN?

UDIN stands for Unique Document Identification Number. Unique Document Identification Number (UDIN) is a unique 18 digits  number initiated on the portal of UDIN for every certificate and other such documents that have been certified by a Chartered Accountant (CA) who have registered themselves on the portal.

Documents where UDIN is mandatory

• All Certification done by Practising CAs w.e.f. 1st Feb., 2019.
• All GST Audit Reports & Tax Audit Reports w.e.f. 1st April, 2019.
• All other attest functions

It has to be initiated  within 15 days from the date of signing or attesting the documents by the CA in practice and it cannot be done after 15 days after the date of signing.

Validation of UDIN by the Income Tax Department

After a press release dated 26/11/2020, CBDT  announced the validation of UDIN initiated from the ICAI portal at the time of upload of Tax Audit Reports. Also this validation of UDIN was made compulsory at the time of submitting a certificate or report within a time period of 15 days of submission of certificate or report on the e-filing portal.

The Income Tax department would validate the UDIN of CAs or auditors with the help of ICAI when there would be submission of the tax audit reports on the e-filing portal.

What is the need of UDIN?

To restrict the wrong doings an innovative concept of Unique Documents Identification Number has been implemented by the Professional Development Committee of ICAI. All the certificates have also been made compulsory with effect from 01/02/2019 as per the Council decision taken at the 379th meeting which was held on 17-18/12/2018

CAs with full time certificate of practice can register on UDIN Portal and initiate UDIN by registering the certificates certified by them.

Also according to the press release the Income Tax Filing Portal has been completed the integration with the ICAI portal for UDIN validation  created by the ICAI Portal as part of an ongoing initiative by the Income Tax department to integrate with other government agencies and bodies

With the  system-level integration, the UDIN for the audit report / certificate submitted by the auditor to the e-registration portal has to be  verified online at ICAI. This will help to eliminate false or inaccurate tax audit reports that are not properly certified by ICAI.

Hence, This move will obstruct the submission of fake or improper intelligence as it will not acquire agreement at the revenue stretch doorway until legal by ICAI. UDIN provided by the CA for submitting the audit reports will be validated online with ICAI. This resolution of the bureau will bar numerous groups from fraud CAs.

Get answers to your queries, Read: FAQs on Unique Document Identification Number