ICAI to limit individual tax audits by chartered accountants to 60 annually from 2026-27

Chartered accountants will be individually allowed to carry out only up to 60 tax audits in a financial year, with the ICAI taking a decision to implement the limit from April 1, 2026.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), which also regulates the chartered accountants, has more than four lakh members.

ICAI President Charanjot Singh Nanda on Friday said the limit of 60 tax audits is already in place but a chartered accountant is also permitted to carry out the audits for partners also.

For example, if there are four partners in an audit firm, each partner can also do the audit for another partner. While the audit firm can carry out up to 240 audits, a partner can do more than 60 audits individually now. The decision has been taken to limit the tax audits to 60 for an individual partner, he said.

"It is going to be in force from the next financial year starting from April 1, 2026," Nanda said at a briefing in the national capital.

The limit of 60 will be the aggregate limit in respect of all tax audits signed by a member (chartered accountant), both in his individual capacity and as a partner of a firm(s). Further, a partner of a firm cannot sign any tax audit report on behalf of any other partner.

There will also be certain relaxations to the limit.

To a query from PTI on whether the limit is also aimed at curbing malpratices, Nanda replied in the affirmative.

"With the UDIN we have control over each and everything. We are totally working towards (curbing) malpractices," he said.

Amid instances of misdoings and complaints of signatures of chartered accountants being forged, ICAI has put in place the Unique Document Identification Number (UDIN) system.

UDIN is a unique number generated for every document certified or attested by a practising chartered accountant.

Meanwhile, the deadline for submitting comments on the draft overseas networking guidelines for domestic chartered accountant firms has been extended till July 16.

Earlier this month, ICAI issued the draft overseas networking guidelines and the move is part of continuing efforts to expand the reach of chartered accountant firms and create large domestic entities that will be capable of competing globally.

"These guidelines are meant to promote networking amongst one or more chartered accountant firm (s) registered with ICAI with networks or entities established and registered outside India in their respective jurisdiction," ICAI had said.