09 April 2008
Ours is a laision / Representation ofice of a foreign social service organisation. Our office is recognised as Coordination Office (Coof)
We have obtained permission from RBI U/s 29 of FERA in 1994 to open this office. Rules prevent us from doing any business activity and we cannot earn any income.
Our amin activity is to accept propols for grants and forward these proposals to our parent organisation for approval. parent organisation has a bank account in India and the amount approved is transferred to partner organisations for development activities.
To manage the expenses of Coof amount as and when required is transferred from parent organisations bank a/c to coof a/c and from withdrawals from coof india bank account all the expenses are met. Accounting year of Coof is from Jan to Dec (In line with parent organisation)
Now I want to ask following questions... 1. Income tax status of Coof Office 2. Is it mandatory to file IT return 3. We are monitoring the grants but what can be done for TDS from the payments made from parent organisation's bank a/c? 4. For coof we are deducting TDS from salary. 5. A general question : Is it compulsory for us to register laision office with FEMA (Now FERA is gone) or our registration has an automatic transfer from FERA to FEMA?
If somebody truly research this case and provide us a legal opinion in writting we are ready to pay the professional fees. If needed we can provide additional information.