Estamp intiative by MCA

Registrars of Companies have to ensure that proper stamp duty is paid on the instruments registered with their office. As of now, physical submission of documents is mandatory where stamp duty is levied in order to ascertain that applicable stamp duty has been paid. In the present scenario, even though the eForm is submitted instantly, the RoC office has to wait for receipt of physical stamp papers to initiate necessary processing. It results in service delivery time getting longer. Hence, in furtherance of e-governance initiatives, provisions regarding stamp duty applicable on filing of e-forms have been amended and stakeholders shall have facility to pay stamp duty in electronic manner also. As of now, this process shall cover Form 1(including MoA, AoA), Form 5 and Form 44 only, accordingly revised eforms are being introduced w.e.f. 12.09.2009. These provisions shall be applicable to the eforms filed subsequent to this amendment. In case eforms filed earlier are 'Resubmitted' after implementation of this change, e-stamp shall not be applicable.

Keeping in view the requirement of stakeholders awareness, process of e-stamp has not been made mandatory, meaning thereby, stakeholders have option to pay stamp duty in electronic manner through MCA21 system or in physical form as per the existing procedure.Further this process shall be applicable only to such States/Union Territories which have agreed to the request of Ministry of Corporate Affairs for collection of e-stamp duty on their behalf.

List of eForms to which eStamping will be applicable

* Form 1, (including MoA, AoA)
* Form 5
* Form 44
* Form 67

Major differences between the draft of AS 1 (Revised), Presentation of Financial Statements, and existing AS 1 (issued 1979)

The Draft of revised AS 1 generally deals with presentation of financial statements,
whereas existing AS 1 (issued1979) deals only with the disclosure of accounting
policies. The scope covered by the draft is thus much wider and line by line
comparison of the difference with the present standard is not possible. However, the
major requirements as laid down in the draft are as follows..

* An enterprise shall make an explicit statement in the financial statements of
compliance with all the Accounting Standards. Further, the draft allows deviation
from a requirement of an accounting standard in case the management
concludes that compliance with ASs will be misleading and if the regulatory
framework requires or does not prohibit such a departure.

* The draft of revised AS 1 requires presentation and provides criteria for
classification of Current / Non- Current assets / liabilities.

* The draft of revised AS 1 prohibits presentation of any item as extraordinary Item
in the Statement of Comprehensive Income.

* The draft of revised AS 1 requires disclosure of judgments made by management
while framing of accounting polices. Also, it requires disclosure of key
assumptions about the future and other sources of measurement uncertainty that
have significant risk of causing a material adjustment to the carrying amounts of
assets and liabilities within next financial year.

* The draft of revised AS 1 requires classification of expenses to be presented
either based on nature or function of expenses. If classification is based on
function, additional information on the nature of expenses should be disclosed.

* The draft of revised AS 1 requires presentation of statement of financial position
as at the beginning of the earliest period when an entity applies an accounting
policy retrospectively or makes a retrospective restatement of items in the
financial statements, or when it reclassifies items in its financial statements.

* The draft of revised AS 1 requires presentation of components of comprehensive
income (i.e. non-owner changes in equity) are required to be presented in the
Statement of Other Comprehensive Income.

* In respect of reclassification of items, the draft of revised AS 1 requires disclosure of nature, amount and reason for reclassification in the notes to financial statements.

* The draft of revised AS 1 requires the financial statements to include a Statement
of Changes in Equity which, inter alia, includes reconciliation between opening
and closing balance for each component of equity