The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) had made the generation of Unique Document Identification Number (UDIN) from ICAI website (www.icai.org) mandatory for every kind of certificate/tax audit report, and other attestations made by their members as required by various regulators.
The quoting of UDIN had come into effect from when ICAI notified in the gazette notification on 2nd August 2019. The ICAI introduced this requirement to curb fake certifications by non-Chartered Accountants (CA’s) misrepresenting themselves as Chartered Accountants.
The UDIN provided for the audit reports/certificates by the Chartered Accountants in the e-filing portal shall be validated online with the ICAI with system-level integration. This verification of UDIN will help in weeding out fake or incorrect tax audit reports not duly authenticated with the ICAI.
The verification of UDIN is in line with the ongoing initiatives of the Income Tax Department (ITD) for integrating with other government agencies and bodies. The income tax e-filing portal has completed its integration with the ICAI portal for verification of UDIN generated by the Chartered Accountants from ICAI portal for certifying/attesting the documents.
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The income tax e-filing portal had already made quoting UDIN mandatorily with effect from 27th April 2020. The quoting of UDIN is mandatory for all the documents certified/attested in compliance with the Income Tax Act, 1961 by a Chartered Accountant.
If a Chartered Accountant is unable to generate UDIN before submission of audit report/certificate, the income tax e-filing portal permits such submission. However, the said Chartered Accountant has to generate and update the UDIN within 15 calendar days from the date of form submission in the income tax e-filing portal.
If the UDIN for any audit report/certificate is not updated within the 15 days provided for the same, the department will consider such audit report/certificate as invalid submission.
For any clarifications/feedback on the topic, please contact the writer at dvsr.anjaneyulu@cleartax.in
DVSR Anjaneyulu known as AJ, is a Chartered Accountant by profession. Loves to listening to music & spending time with family and friends.
