By CA. Narayan Pasari
President
Dear Members,
Surfing the net one evening, I found an interesting quote:
Contentment is the highest gain, Good
Company the highest course, Enquiry the highest wisdom, and Peace the highest
enjoyment
How true, how true… but I realised
it’s even more relevant if you are a highly respected and eagerly awaited
Journal and now on its way to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the
prestigious BCA Journal starting this April.
It has been very exciting and eventful
five decades that have gone by; and BCAJ has captured the essence of a growing
India as it oscillated between turbulence and smooth sailing. I see BCAJ as a
tireless marathon runner striding effortlessly as it straddles time, with well
researched and incisive articles for tax and accounting professionals, both in
practice and industry.
BCAJ has also been in a way like a
compass, pointing us all in the right direction with its vast spectrum of
analytical articles and updates, on diverse subjects such as Direct Tax,
Indirect Tax, International Tax, Accounting & Auditing and Information
Technology. Keeping pace with the requirements of the ‘digi-gen’, E-journal
access has been made available with the added advantage of a repository
spanning 17 years.
I would like to extend hearty
congratulations to the entire team behind the Journal – past and present on
behalf of all its readers. It is their long hours of painstaking efforts that
have made the BCAJ a solid foundation and a beacon of inspiration to all! I
wish the team all the very best in the years ahead in taking the journal to the
next level.
Last week around thirty thousand
farmers marched to Mumbai to press for their various demands to the Government.
What was remarkable is that these farmers protested with dignity and discipline.
On the last lap of their journey they walked almost 15 hours to avoid
disrupting the students from taking their final exams. What’s commendable was
the pain the farmers took to ensure no pain to the citizens of Mumbai. The
farmers dispersed as quietly as they came, but not before getting written
assurances.
When one looks at the statistics, the
enormity of the problem dawns with tremendous clarity. We have 90 million
families or around 54% of Indians engaged in agriculture, who after toiling
relentlessly day after day, generate a mere 14% of the nation’s GDP. Worse
still, the farmers seem to be on a lose-lose treadmill. If their crops fail,
they have little to sell and no profit. And in case of a bumper crop, the price
gets depressed, curtailing any serious profit. I believe some serious thinking
is required to go far beyond merely providing remedial aid. Innovative
solutions need to be chalked out in tandem with modern technology to transform
their lives and raise their living standards.
Grappling with the challenge of
employment generation, the government has focused on giving an impetus to the
services sector. Accounting for over 55% of the nation’s GDP, the service
sector has the possibility of stimulating domestic growth as well as winning
lucrative export opportunities. In this direction, twelve Champion Sectors in
services have been identified and a fund of Rs. 5,000 crore has been proposed
to accelerate support initiatives.
Accounting & Finance Services is
one of the 12 identified Champion Sectors where the Government is promoting
development to realize their true potential, increased productivity and
competitiveness which will further boost exports of diverse services from
India. However, experts feel that “there are miles to go…” before this sector
can harness the global opportunity. Being a regulated profession with a
licensing regime globally; there is a need to enter into many more MoUs with
foreign accounting institutes and mutually recognise each other’s
qualifications. The Indian accounting education system needs to be revamped to
match the challenges of globalisation. And lastly the curriculum is outdated
and needs to be in sync with market realities. Technology and new economy will
impact our profession immensely. Probably curriculum needs to capture that
impact in coming times. In fact curricula need to be futuristically and not
reactively structured if the profession has to meet these challenges. These
impediments need to be sorted if Indian accounting firms are to transit from
back end transactional processing work to big ticket contracts.
Related to this, the Hon. Supreme
Court recently in a case ordered the Government to set up a panel to suggest
changes in laws to regulate multi-national accounting firms. The Bench ruled
that the panel to also look into the framework needed to enforce Sections 25
and 29 of the CA Act and the statutory Code of Conduct for Chartered
Accountants needs to be revisited appropriately. The Panel will also look into
the need of an exclusive oversight body for the auditors’ profession because of
conflict of interest of auditors with consultants.
The PNB scam has opened quite a can of
worms and has been in the news right from the day it broke. The general public
is outraged at the audacity and arrogance of the key accused. They are furious
with the bank officials who colluded or were scapegoats in the racket. They are
upset with RBI and market regulators for not unearthing the fraud…and the
politicians who allegedly allowed the swindlers to scoot with the loot. The
auditors too are being investigated and castigated for not raising a red flag.
Action and measures have been initiated by the government and RBI to prevent a
recurrence. Even ICAI has demonstrated its commitment to discipline errant CAs.
Representations to the Government on
key issues have always been taken up by the Society and it is regular in
interacting with the regulators. Recently BCAS along with the CA Associations
of Lucknow, Karnataka and Ahmedabad made an appeal to make statutory branch
audits of PSB banks more stringent. In a joint representation to RBI it has
listed several important issues/recommendations that need to be urgently
addressed by RBI and others for an effective audit coming up for the year ended
March 2018.
The World Bank in its bi-annual India
Development Update has been mildly critical of GST, calling it one of the most
complex with the second highest tax rate in the world. Comparing 115 countries,
the report says as many as 49 have a single slab; while 28 use two slabs and
five (including India) use four non-zero slabs. The Update also points out to
the positive impulse expected from India’s novel GST system which, is likely to
improve the domestic flow of goods and services, contribute to the
formalization of the economy and sustainably enhance growth.
Despite the recent momentum, attaining
a growth rate of 8 percent and higher on a sustained basis will require
addressing several structural challenges. India needs to durably recover its
two lagging engines of growth – private investments and exports – while
maintaining its hard-won macroeconomic stability. Crucial steps in this process
include cleaning up banks’ balance sheets, realizing the expected growth and
fiscal dividend from the GST, and continuing the integration into the global
economy.
As we start the new fiscal year each
member has jotted new ideas, new goals and new budgets and will be translating
them into action points. What is important to note is that the digital
revolution is cascading across every sphere of practice causing widespread
disruption besides redefining clients’ expectations. For the professionals of
the future, the ability to adapt their skills to the changing needs will be
critical. The time it will take for skills to become irrelevant will shrink.
There will be work for people with growth mindsets, but those with fixed
mindsets will be replaced with machines. The skills of yesterday will be
obsolete tomorrow. The future workforce need to align its skillsets to keep
pace with time.
As sunshine energy and a green
environment become increasingly the priority of our lives and nation, we at
BCAS have decided to discontinue our hard copy version of the monthly
Newsletter. Its content is being majorly covered in the BCAJ and regular
updates regarding upcoming programmes are accessible on our website and through
email. The VP Communique and a snapshot of programs of the Society will be sent
as a e-copy each month. We do hope our members will understand our
responsibility to practice green initiatives, instead of merely talking about
them.
With the start of the new fiscal year,
I look forward to getting more feedback from all of you about the opportunities
and challenges we should tackle in the months ahead.
Feel free to write to me on
president@bcasonline.org
With kind regards
CA.
Narayan Pasari
President
