Benefits of Outsourcing Accounting Tax Services to Us

In today’s position of globalization and technology convergence, the process of carrying out business has been restructuring. It takes astute business sense to outsource the right business processes. Most businesses and large companies are doing the right type of outsourcing their accounting, financial reporting and payroll processes for ensuring efficiency and cost savings to the business. 

 Our accountingoutsourcing services in Chennai are always structured to suit an individual client’s needs and requirements. Some of the accounts outsourcing services of note are as follows:

Bookkeeping and General Accounting Outsourcing Services

Vrmaratnam and company’s outsourcing services team can deliver complete finance and accounting solutions to companies located in different parts of the world.

The function as complete outsourced partners and take complete responsibility of the client’s routine processes allowing the management the freedom to focus on the key strategic needs of your business by our accountants in Chennai. 

Best Range of Services

The range of our varied accounting services include

Book Keeping
Vramaratnam and company pride itself in keeping a trained staff who uses technology to carry out transactions on a regular basis. This methodical process of keeping track of all financial transactions diminishes chances for any glitches in the accounting process.

Financial Statement preparation
The competent team takes care of all different financial statement preparation such as balance sheet, income statement or profit, and loss statement, statement of retained earnings and cash flows.

Management accounts
They prepare management accounts ensuring that all essential information for company executives are available. 

Payroll Outsourcing

Preparation of the monthly payroll based on the inputs received from the organization. This would include all statutory and other relevant deductions.

Ensure deductions of all different amounts and according to statutory laws such as Income Tax, Provident Fund, and Professional Tax and so on.

Checking Form 16 for the Employees and file Qty. such as returns for e-TDS with Income Tax authorities.

Deposit TDS and provide proof of deposit.

Taking care of redressal of any issues.

Reconciliation of payments or statutory deductions and so on with books of accounts on a quarterly basis.

Tax Planning & Returns

The service includes aiding the clients to make necessary periodic income tax, sales tax, and other key returns. It also incorporates helping the client make the right investment decisions and helping them avail of different rebates and deductions.

Cash Forecasting

The services incorporate analyzing the cash requirements of the business and making the right cash forecasts for planning the future.

Full Overview of Tax Structure in India

India has a competent tax-structure system and it caters to a humongous population. Like it or lump it, you just cannot ignore taxes, as it is the largest source of income for the government. This money is then utilized for different purposes and projects which then can lead to the development of the nation. 

 Central and State Governments along with local authorities such as municipal corporations call the shots on taxes. The government is unable to levy any tax unless it is passed as a law.

Here are some of the important features of the taxation system in India. Get a better understanding of this from tax consultants in Chennai or CA firms in Chennai. A responsible citizen is one who understands the tax structure and caters to the norms associated with it. 

1.       The Important Role of the Central and State Government

There are specific roles for both of the central and state government. The Central Government of India imposes taxes like customs duty, service tax, income tax, and central excise duty.

The state governments, on the other hand, imposes taxes such as professional tax, income tax on agricultural income, value-added tax (VAT), land revenue, state excise duty, and stamp duty. The local bodies are also allowed to collect some taxes such as property tax, octroi and some other taxes on different services such as drainage and water supply.

2.       Different Types of taxes

Taxes can be categorized under two headings namely direct and indirect taxes. The implementation of the two is what separates the two, in other words, there lies the difference. The assessee pays the direct taxes and indirect taxes are levied on goods and services.

A) Direct taxes

Direct taxes are administered to individuals and corporate entities and simply cannot be transferred to others. The plethora of taxes include income tax, gift tax, and wealth tax.

Income tax

According to the Income Tax (IT) Act, 1961 every assessee with total income more than the maximum exempt limit has to pay this tax. Both the tax structure and rates are annually prescribed by the Union Budget. This tax is imposed at the time of each assessment year, starts on 1st April and ends on 31st March.  

B) Indirect taxes

Indirect taxes are, as the term denotes, not directly paid by the assessee to the government authorities. These indirect taxes are levied on goods and services and collected by those who sell goods or offer services. Check out the most common indirect taxes in India. Some of the important indirect taxes are value-added tax (VAT), customs duty, octroi, excise duty, service tax, and goods and services tax.

3. Revenue Authorities

CBDT or The Central Board of Direct Taxes is an integral part of the Department of Revenue under the Ministry of Finance. This body not only provides inputs for policy but also plans direct taxes in India besides being responsible for the administration of direct tax laws via the Income Tax Department.

CBEC
The CBEC or The Central Board of Excise and Customs is like the CBDT is also an integral part of the Department of Revenue under the Ministry of Finance. It is a nodal national agency whose services include administering central excise duty, customs and service tax in India.

CBIC

Under the GST regime, the CBIC or the Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs provide post-legislative approval. The CBIC would look after all the directorates, field formations and provide assistance to the government in policy making in lieu of GST, continuing with central excise duty levying customs functions.

The Indian taxation system has undergone several modifications over the years. The income tax rates have been standardized providing income tax rates with simpler governing laws helping common people understand the same.

What is a Compliance Review?

In a business climate states’ are constantly trying to heighten efforts to get additional revenues, and in that particular scenario entities also find themselves facing sales and tax audits. This results in a deficiency assessment. The compliance review can also be known as a pre-audit tool as it can detect potential issues and corrects any material misstatements right before an audit.

A compliance review includes the following things,

• Review the recordkeeping and also the accounting methods.
• Review of the taxability issues that are related to the goods and services which are sold or purchased.
• Review of the sales tax return preparation procedure.
• Recommend few changes, if required to current processes.
• Estimation of the potential sales tax liability exposure which results from an audit.

 In a compliance audit, what will be reviewed will vary greatly depending upon the fact, what kind of organization is it that is, whether an organization is a private or public company, what kind of data is it equipped to handle and how does it transmit sensitive data, whether it transmits or stores important sensitive financial data.

 For example, SOX requirements mean that any particular electronic communication needs to be backed up and secured with a competent disaster recovery infrastructure. Healthcare providers particularly that store or transmit important e-health records, such as personal health information, are subject to HIPAA requirements.

As far as the financial services companies are concerned, that transmit credit card data are, on the other hand, subject to PCI DSS requirements. In each of these cases, the organization should be equipped enough to be able to demonstrate compliance with the help of an audit trail, which is often generated by data coming from event log management software.

By implementing the following basic tips it helps produce a compliance quality system as discussed below, this will ensure that your high standards are accordingly met and maintained:

1. Report the Quality Assurance

One way of maintaining compliance quality is sending the final report to a reviewer before its release.  While it may seem an obvious thing to do getting your report QA checked is your last resort of defence for all your audit reports.  This ensures the following things,

• The report is read again from a fresh perspective to check spelling and other glaring errors, which are easy to overlook when you edit your own work.
• The reviewer can also identify and discuss any contentious issues or statements with the auditor right before the report is released.

2. Peer Review

Another important step which you can implement is peer review.  This is one requirement which periodically has a report reviewed by a different member of the team.  The benefits of the peer review are as follows,

• The reviewer can pick up a new approach or response to a situation.
• There are chances of a potential discovery of an fresh interpretation of a regulation.
• The auditor can consider some of the insights that their colleagues may have about the similar issues, and offer practical solutions on how to improve the report greatly.

3. Board Reporting

Some audit reports, whether good or bad need board scrutiny. It then becomes essential that the board is kept posted about the activities of the compliance function with the help of routine reporting on audit activities and outcomes. The compliance function, and specifically the compliance monitoring, should be front and centre, particularly in today’s board-level oversight activities.  This has a positive impact as it ensures that results are communicated to the highest levels.
By implementing these simple and effective tips to your review process you will persistently be able to deliver a high quality standard of compliance reporting.

Top 10 Tips for Managing Sales Tax Audits

The sales and tax tips help your business to develop an effective proactive sales tax strategy which helps you to get audit-ready. Businesspersons find it tough to understand how to implement the safeguards and systems, monitor the changing statutory rules, and find the right methods to collect the right sales and use the tax catering to the right jurisdiction at the right time, all this can be difficult to maintain for even the most compliance-minded businessperson. So, we have concocted the following tips to address sales and tax compliance issues.

The Top 10 Sales Tips by the Renowned Auditors in Chennai

These handy sales tips will help you sail through the Tax audits with ease.

•    Stop underestimating sales tax complexity
 As a business grows its sales tax obligations becomes more and more difficult to manage. If you underestimate the complexity of sales tax, you will unwittingly increase your risk of audit.  But in order to keep pace with the vast array of tax requirements, you have to put in intelligence, determination and the right tools.

•    Figure out tax liability by unravelling changing nexus rules
The link between a business and a taxing jurisdiction requires a sales tax collection and remittance, most businesses are unaware of the dramatic changes to the current nexus laws. To change things, review your current nexus and focus on the applicable rule changes.

•    Find out more about products and services which are taxable
 Update sales tax rates for any new products and services to bring about any related jurisdictional changes. Focus on utilities, business services, personal services, professional services and so on. Keep reviewing the taxability matrix to keep yourself updated.

•    Keep a tab on consumer use tax
Consumer use tax is mostly found as the unpaid tax in audits. Learn the main difference between sales and use tax and adopt a written use tax policy. Track and account for withdrawals from the resale inventory.

•    Focus on the changing exemption certificate rules
 Businesses that control a large number of exemption certificates find it difficult when audited to link specific certificates with specific transactions. To fix that you need to create an audit trail specifically for certificates. Quickly generate an exemption certificate summary report.

•    Find out when and where to remit sales and use the tax returns
Some companies who work extra hard to track and update changes, accurately in sales and use tax rules, but still boundaries and rate changes fail to remit their sales tax precisely.  To fix this find out whether your filing schedule has changed in applicable states and whether the states have implemented brand new e-filing or pre-payment needs.

•    Address the compliance hurdles
It is imperative that you avoid practices that may increase your risk of audit and also avoid typical filing errors. The filing errors include late payment or payment to the wrong jurisdictions. Remember to update product and service taxability according to the change in rules.

•    Know more about the applicable sales tax holiday
Get to know about products and services, which are exempt and up to what value within the purview of tax holiday rules.

•    Automate
Automation is really important right from inventory management to finance and sales, automation is what gives the companies flexibility, agility, and efficiency they need in a still-recovering market. To automate you need to identify the manual processes which show the lowest return on investments of time and money.

•    Seek help
Companies valiantly trying to collect, file, and report sales and use taxes find it really difficult to handle everything. To address this issue outsourcing and automating their payroll management can help!
To answer all your queries regarding sales tax, contact tax consultants in Chennai if you are based there and you will be able to manage sales tax without any hiccup.