Move to help CAs showcase services and secure more assignments. The government will likely amend the law go-verning the chartered accoun tancy profession to ease rest-rictions on these professionals and their firms to advertise themselves, in a significant change aimed at enabling them to draw assignments bet-ter by showcasing their servi ces, and grow, people aware of the details said.
Under the Chartered Acco-untants Act, 1949, CAs and their firms are currently allo wed to advertise only in a li mited manner through “wri-te-ups”, with curbs on the size of the font and photographs that can be used, among other restrictions.
The new plan is aimed at facilitating the crea fion of big homegrown firms that can compete with inter national players and grab a slice of the $240 billion global auditing and consultancy market.
ICAI MULLING CHANGES TO ETHICS CODE
When sought his views, Insti-tute of Chartered Accoun-tants of India (ICAI) president Charanjot Singh Nanda said the ap planr por ame tors’ body, too, is est to the cor-ministry the law to furt her relatvertisement rulesfor its members. The institute is also conside ring a revision of its Code of,Ethics for chartered accoun-tants and firms, he told ET. This would include revision of theguidelines for advertise ment and websites for accoun ting firms and network firms. The ICAI will release draft re gulations for this purpose in a or two for stakeholder comments, he said.The need for “certain relaxa tions has been identified, such as in the adopted mode of tech nology (pull or push mode), event gallery, font size, etc. and recommendations are being structured accordingly”, Nan da said. These guidelines, while ensuring adherence with ethics, will enhance visi bility for firms and their servi-ces. The Chartered Accountant
HOMEGROWN FIRMS
The plan aims to help domestic CA firms scale up and compete with global auditing and consultancy we players in the $240-billion market
Act, in its original form, didn’t allow professionals or firms any advertisement. However, after amendments to the law in 2006, limited advertise ments through write-ups were permitted, subject to condi tions.
Subsequently, the ICAI Issu ed Advertisement Guidelines, stipulating various dos and don’ts. To facilitate the crea tion of large domestic audit and consultancy firms compa rable to the Big Four, Nanda said the institute has submit-ted its suggestions to the cor porate affairs ministryThese include facilitating consolidation and growth through simplified regulatory procedures and fiscal incenti ves, bolstering the operational capacity of domestic net-works of Indian CA firms and improving the overall ease of professional practices by ra tionalising compliance requi rements, he added. The absence of large homeg-rown firms has allowed the Big Four-EY, Deloitte, KPMG and PwC along with Grant Thornton and BDO to domina-te the Indian audit ecosystem.
For its part, the institute has taken a raft of measures, such as revision of the Merger & Demerger of CA Firms Guide lines, 2024 and introduction of Aggregation of LLPs Guideli nes, 2024, to encourage CA firms to build scale via colla borations, Nanda said. Moreo ver, it is formulating a regula tory framework that will enab-ledomestic firms to tie up with their global peers, he added.
