A chartered accountant who files before the due date, not after the notice.

Check three things before you engage anyone. First, verify the membership number on the ICAI website — every practising chartered accountant has one, and firm names are registered with a firm registration number (FRN). Second, ask for the scope and fee in writing before work starts. Third, ask who will actually handle your file day to day; in small practices this matters more than the firm's size. Casela Advisors provides a written scope and a named point of contact at the start of every engagement.

Fees vary with complexity, not with the city. A straightforward salaried return with one Form 16 sits at the low end. It rises when there are capital gains, multiple house properties, foreign assets, or business income requiring a balance sheet. Returns needing a tax audit under Section 44AB are priced separately because the audit itself is a distinct engagement. Casela Advisors quotes a fixed fee after a short call, so you know the number before any work begins — ask for a quote.

For suppliers of goods, registration becomes compulsory once aggregate turnover in a financial year crosses ₹40 lakh. For suppliers of services, the threshold is ₹20 lakh. Registration is compulsory irrespective of turnover in several cases — inter-state supply of goods, e-commerce operators and sellers on e-commerce platforms, persons liable under reverse charge, casual taxable persons, and input service distributors. Many businesses also register voluntarily below the threshold so their customers can claim input tax credit. Verify current thresholds before acting, as they are revised from time to time.

A tax audit under Section 44AB is generally required when business turnover exceeds ₹1 crore. That limit extends to ₹10 crore where cash receipts and cash payments are each 5% or less of the total — which most digitally-transacting businesses satisfy. For professionals, the threshold is gross receipts above ₹50 lakh. A tax audit is also triggered if you declare profits lower than the presumptive rate under Section 44AD while your income exceeds the basic exemption limit. We assess this at the start of the year, not in September when there is no time left to fix the books.

With complete documents and no name-approval rejection, incorporation through the SPICe+ route typically completes within 7 to 15 working days. The variable is usually name availability — a proposed name too close to an existing company or a registered trademark gets rejected and restarts that step. Companies with a registered office in Thane or Navi Mumbai are incorporated under the Registrar of Companies, Mumbai. The certificate of incorporation issues with PAN, TAN, and EPFO and ESIC registration numbers included.

Yes. Most of our engagements run on shared drives, email and scheduled calls, with documents collected digitally. We meet at your premises when the work genuinely needs it — stock audit, statutory audit fieldwork, or a first meeting where it helps to see the operation. Physical presence is not a requirement for GST, TDS, ITR or ROC filing.

Note the response deadline printed on the notice before anything else — most notices carry a short window, and an unanswered notice escalates into a best-judgement assessment. Do not file a hurried reply. Send us the notice and the underlying records and we will assess whether it is a mismatch that can be closed with a reconciliation, a defect that needs a revised return, or a matter requiring formal representation. Send us the notice.

It depends on whether you will raise outside capital. A private limited company is the only one of the three that can issue equity to investors and grant ESOPs, but it carries the heaviest annual compliance. An LLP gives limited liability with lighter filing and no dividend distribution complexity, which suits professional firms and bootstrapped businesses. A proprietorship is cheapest to run and taxed at slab rates, but offers no liability protection and cannot easily bring in a partner. We run this comparison against your actual funding and revenue plans rather than defaulting to one structure.