14 May 2011
Tax Audit is done under Provisions of Income Tax Act, 1961. Under section 44AB every person carrying on business is required to get his accounts audited if the total sales, turnover or gross receipts in business exceed sixty lakh rupees in the previous year. Similarly, a person carrying on a profession is required to get his accounts audited if the gross receipts in profession exceed fifteen lakh rupees in the previous year.
There is nothing as such as normal audit.
Statutory Audits are those mandated by a statute. So by that definition even tax audit is a statutory audit.
Statutory audit (under the Companies Act) include statutory financial audit and statutory cost audit. Statutory Financial audit is conducted by a Chartered Accountant and Statutory Cost Audit is conducted by a Cost Accountant. The statutory financial audit is compulsory for all companies where as Statutory cost audit is applicable only to certain industries on fulfilling certain criteria.
Similarly Tax Audit (Section 44 AB) under the Income Tax Act is done by a Chartered Accountant.