The unceasing inefficiencies, digital dysfunctionalities and lack of service require no summary. The point here is to nudge those vested with exclusive power, responsibility and obligation to make amends.
Let’s also look in the mirror and relearn some lessons. I have divided them under three groups:
REMEMBER:
1. Our job often is to report and help compliance.
2. Beyond a point, we need not call for extensions as much as we like to uphold what we believe is right.
3. The client is the primary owner of the compliance responsibility.
4. Signing off with a client doesn’t mean ‘delivering anyhow’ or ‘delivering no matter what’. That happens only in super-hero movies.
5. Promises and rhetoric are for optics. The final test of one’s word is the resultant experience. (GST, for example – great idea, terrible implementation!)
6. We ‘suffer’ when something goes wrong; but government cannot ‘suffer’ or ‘feel’.
7. Government has low commitment. Its words are need-based and breaches have no consequence1.You and I have a personal honour to keep our word, unlike the government.
8. Vote banks are more important than taxpayer banks. The taxpayers and tax professionals are at the bottom of their priority list.
1 Remember the FM adding
LTCG on STT-paid securities sale or MAT on SEZ profits that were tax-free
NEVER:
9. Carry the burden of clients. Few understand the pain that professionals go through.
10. Breach the ‘respectable distance’ we must keep from clients.
11. Emotionally identify (like doctors) with client problems, rather, identify their problems, give solutions and offer assistance.
12. Compromise on health. Your health is of paramount importance. Health once damaged can be irreparable and even(tually) fatal.
13. Feel that a contract of service by a Chartered Accountant is a contract of guarantee or insurance.
14. Work without an engagement letter defining scope and fees, timelines, deliverables and client readiness as a precondition. Never.
ALWAYS:
15. Explain the rules of services – Compliance is a sub-set of client preparedness and provision of useable data well in time.
16. Let clients sense that you cannot be taken for granted, especially for those perennial late-comers, shabby record-keepers, and low quality hirers.
17. Remind clients of their responsibilities, timelines to supply data and the consequences of not doing so.
18. Keep educating clients on the difference between products and services – products can be delivered off the shelf, not services.
19. Let clients know that delays have a ripple effect. Delay or breaking the tempo impacts other assignments. Have a start date and an end date.
20. Know the difference between material and immaterial for both amounts and issues in an assignment.
21. Consider variable fees – benefits for early birds.
Till we don’t do enough of the above, compliance professionals will be sinking deeper into a hole – health-wise and money-wise. Increasing compliances may seem lucrative and remunerative but will be taken over by machine. The role of CAs in our mind must be re-imagined and recalibrated constantly. This is not a guess, estimate or premonition. It is written on the wall!
Raman Jokhakar
Editor
