Find out about the Financial Statement Audit

A financial statement audit is all about examining the entity's financial statements and helps to accompany the disclosures all with the help of the services of the independent auditor. It results with a report submitted by the auditor, and it offers a fair presentation of the financial statements and other related disclosures. The auditor's report made by the chartered accountants in Chennai and other cities of the country should come with the financial statements when they are given to the intended recipients.

The chief objective of a financial statement audit is that it offers financial credibility to the reported financial position and also according to the performance of a business. The Securities and Exchange Commission says that all the entities that are under public domain must file annual reports with the ones that are audited. Similarly, lenders typically require an audit of the financial statements of any entity, which they have to lend. Suppliers also require audited financial statements before they extend trade credit (though that happens only when the amount of requested credit is a substantial amount. 

Know all about the primary stages of audit here, 

1. Planning and risk assessment. Besides understanding the business and the environment where it operates, they use this information to assess whether the risks involved and how it will affect the financial statements.

2. Internal controls testing. This helps the assessment of the effectiveness of an entity's suite of controls, which helps focus on the areas as per proper authorization, the safeguarding of assets, and also segregating of duties. This involves the array of tests, which is conducted on a sampling of transactions helping it determine the degree of control effectiveness. A higher degree of effectiveness helps the auditors to control some of the audit procedures. If the controls are not very ineffective (there may be a high risk of material misstatement), then the auditors must find out about other procedures to find out more about the financial statements. There are a number of risk assessment questionnaires available that helps with the internal controls testing.

3. Substantive procedures. This involves a broad number of procedures, a glimpse of which are the following,

• Analysis.
• Cash.
• Marketable securities
• Accounts receivable
• Inventory.
• Fixed assets.
• Accounts payable.
• Accrued expenses.
• Debt.
• Revenue.
• Expenses.

An audit made by the auditorsin Chennai and the other places, definitely one of the most expensive examinations of financial statements. The least expensive is said to be a compilation and the next one is a review. Due to its cost, many companies try to downgrade to a review or compilation, though this is only a compilation which you can follow if it is acceptable to one of the report recipients. Publicly held entities are required to get their quarterly financial statements reviewed apart from the annual audit.

How is GST Beneficial for the Country? How Would it Help to Improve the Country's Economy?

India has joined the bandwagon of indirect tax reforms. The Empowered Committee of the State has announced in the first discussion paper on 10.11.2009, that there will be a plan to levy a “Dual GST Scheme” in India, read both the Center and the States will have the power to levy the GST taxes.

The scheme though originally was supposed to be realized from 1st April 2016, several hurdles pushed the date further as the ruling party did not have the majority in the Rajya Sabha back then. Most of the states too expressed their grievances against the tax for one reason or the other. 

Constitutional alteration - While the Center has the power to impose the GST tax services till the production stage, the States have the onus to tax sale of goods. While each of powers cannot be swapped with one another as the States cannot levy a tax on supply of services while the Centre cannot impose a tax on the sale of goods. The Constitution does not put the power baton on any one of them (State or Center) exclusively, to levy a GST tax. Furthermore, the Constitution falls short of empowering the States to levy import taxes. Therefore, the Constitutional Amendments empower the Centre to levy taxes on the sale of goods and States and also to impose both service tax and import tax.

What is Goods and Services taxes?  Goods and Service Tax or (GST) is a comprehensive tax levied on the manufacture, sale, and the consumption of goods and services. The Center and the State governments do away with all the indirect taxes.

GST is levied on goods and services under which it is mandatory for each person to pay tax, GST filing 2018 on his output and is imperative to pay the (ITC) or input tax credit on the tax paid on its inputs and outputs. 

 Aims and objectives of GST: The Goods & Service Tax ( GST Annual Returns Due by Dec 31) aims to do away with the double taxation or the cascading effect of taxes on both the production and distribution cost of goods and services. Eradicating the cascading effects of the tax on tax which burdens the final consumers will greatly improve the competitiveness of the ultimate goods and services in the market and it is one of the benefits for GST. This competitiveness has a number of positive repercussions and one of them is certainly a positive impact on the GDP growth of the country.

It goes without saying that the Introduction of a GST substituting the existing multiple tax structures of Centre and State taxes is certainly welcomed with open arms by the consumers. GST will most importantly eliminate the cascading effect on the sale of goods and services. This will impact the cost of goods. The cost of goods shall also decrease chiefly because the tax on tax effect will be done away with, forever. 

GST is transparent and embodies current technology. As most of the activities related tothe GST updates is technology-driven. Activities such as registration, application for refund, filing returns, and response to notice are all completed on the GST Portal. This accelerates the entire process. The GST regime is likely to bring a whole new era in the country and the common people will certainly benefit from it in the long run.