One of the legal requirements of a registered society is to have its accounts audited, if its turnover exceeds the basic exemption limit of Rs 2.5 lakhs in a financial year. In compliance with this legal requirement, all registered societies have their auditors. Now is the time to get our accounts audited.
The reality may be different from Society to Society. There are societies where the auditor, with no malice to anyone, with total commitment to the society, decides everything unilaterally, takes appropriate steps and files the required income tax returns. Here the Board Members may fully trust him/her and leave him/her to function on one’s own and in the process be totally ignorant of what the auditor does. On the other hand, there are societies where the auditor is only for name’s sake. He/she has no commitment to the wellbeing of the society and does not even care to defend the society before the Income Tax Officials. The Board Members remain helpless here. In some other societies, the members are scared of saying anything to the auditor. Here the auditor dictates terms to the members, as it were. On the other hand, there are also societies where the auditor may lack the knowledge and competence required of him and he is not in a position to point out even the obvious legal non-compliances and mistakes. Finally, there are societies where the Board Members hide things from the auditor. This article is an attempt to spell out the role and function of the auditor and the scope of the audit requirements.
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Fr Alex Gnanapragasam SJ
