The Ministry of Home Affairs has extended last date for filing online annual returns in form FC-4 for financial year 2017-18 31 March 2019, due to difficulties faced by associations registered under Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010, Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Rules, 2011 (FCRA).
This comes as a big relief to those, who are still struggling with obtaining non-governmental organisation (NGO) darpan unique identification (UID) or other technical problems on MHA's online portal. Especially, several NGOs were finding it difficult to obtain online the NGO darpan UID, which has been made essential for registration as well as for filing online returns. Obtaining the NGO Darpan UID takes from a few days to few weeks processing by Niti Aayog. In addition, many NGOs were facing technical problems, from not having NGO darpan UID to system errors on MHA’s portal.
To get the NGO darpan UID, the NGO is required to provide details of member (trustee, director, or main functionary), including permanent account number (PAN), mobile, email ID, Aadhaar number and date of the person joining.
Many NGOs objected to the mandatory submission of Aadhaar number, especially post the Supreme Court order limiting its usage. Key functionaries of Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust objected to this mandatory submission of Aadhaar and approached the Delhi High Court. The HC had allowed the trust to submit FC-4 return offline without the NGO darpan UID, says a report from CapIndia.in (https://capindia.in/fcra-end-of-year-woes/).
An association permitted to accept foreign contribution is required to maintain separate set of accounts and records exclusively for the foreign contribution received and submit an annual return, duly certified by a chartered accountant (CA), giving details of the receipt and purpose-wise utilisation of the foreign contribution. The return is to be submitted online, in prescribed Form FC –4, duly accompanied with scanned copies of income and expenditure statement, balance sheet and statement of receipt and payment, which is certified by a CA.
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