• Notification Date: 10-05-2022
• Notification No: N/A

Statutory Filings On MCA Portal Made More Responsive

Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) is preparing a new version of compliance platform for the companies within a couple of months. The decision of modifying the compliance system is made with the intention of improving the interaction methods by the incorporating companies while filing their statutory documents under the Companies Act, 2013 on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs portal.  

In this new and modified ‘company module’ under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs will have new features like chatbots. These chatbots will help the taxpayers in the statutory filings. The new portal will also have web forms in the place of portable document format (PDF) forms. The new MCA portal will have artificial intelligence to offer guidance to the taxpayers throughout the process of statutory filing. According to the report of an individual involved in the project, this idea of modifying the MCA portal is being done with the aim of making it more responsive and to enhance the business. The small businesses which do not have the resources to appoint professional accountants and auditors for the compliance process will be most benefitted by the process.

The ministry had previously rolled out a similar form of compliance structure for the Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) businesses as well. At present, the ministry is expecting that the new module will be effective in enhancing the businesses and the process will be fully brought into effect within the next couple of months.

According to the analysis, this enhanced responsive and interactive technology interface induced in the new company module made with the regulatory authorities, that are the Registrar of Companies (ROC), the Regional Directors, and the official liquidators will be very useful for the businesses and the professionals. Over 1.4 million companies carry out their statutory filings through the online portal of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA). According to the official data, in the Financial Year 21, about 1.2 million annual return filings were done through the MCA portal and around 3.1 million company records were viewed on the official portal of MCA. At present, the number of companies incorporating themselves under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) is rising sharply. Around 12,000 to 14,000 new businesses are being registered per month under the MCA.

The new system of filing statutory compliances will help to influence the administrational strategy of the government. It would help the government to enhance the regulatory framework under the Companies Act. The new portal model has artificial intelligence and data analytics that would be effective in mining the information to search and spot the trends in the corporate market. These new features will help to warrant the attention of the regulators and policy makers.

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has connected the technology platform with several other departments like labour, employment, and revenue department. The technology has also been linked to some of the state governments and select banks in order to offer them with upgraded services like the issuance of Permanent Account Number (PAN), tax deduction and collection account number (TAN), and the Employees Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) registration and profession tax registration.