The MCA  plans to implement deadlines for the compliance of LLPs and companies.It is important for LLPs and companies to be aware of their compliance obligations and to ensure that they meet these obligations in a timely manner in order to avoid potential penalties or other consequences.

 STAGGERED DEADLINES FOR  COMPLIANCE OF LLP AND COMPANIES

• The MCA is planning to introduce staggered deadlines for  submission of compliance documents.
•  Action has been taken to reduce the strain on the MCA portal during the busiest season, when portal is slow down.
• Due to  fact that LLPS and corporations now share the same filing date, the servers see extremely high traffic in the one to two weeks before to the deadline.
• The MCA now wants to divide the companies and LLPs into four or five subsets, with each having a separate filing deadline.
• This approach is similar to  GST deadlines, where certain types of filings, such as submission of GSTR-3B quarterly filings, have different deadlines based on the location of  taxpaying entity.

According to news and media report the MCA will definitely increase the portal’s server capacity over the period, but one also needs to look at its utility.

During non-peak seasons, it doesn’t witness any major traffic and the current capacity is more than enough, said the official. So, instead, we can regulate the traffic by setting different deadlines for different regions.

There will be around four-five different regions across the country. Considering the increase in  number of new firms and LLPs formed in India during  past 3 years, the development assumes significance.

According to  recent MCA data, there were almost 15 million active firms and about 2,50,000 active LLPs as of September 2022.

Nearly 2,40,000 new businesses have started up in the previous three years. This has increased the number of MCA filing as well.

The ministry has received complaints about the portal issues from a various stakeholders, including compliance experts like company secretaries & CA’s.

For instance, in late October, the MCA received new requests for extensions for the AOC4 form files from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and the Institute of Company Secretaries of India, both of which cited technical issues with the MCA platform. On social media, several professionals have also voiced their complaints.

• Many of the professionals choose to do their filings in the last week before the deadline. This should be avoided.
• The MCA will consider transitioning to a cloud server system, which would significantly increase capacity.
• The ministry is currently in the process of transitioning from MCA Version 2 to Version 3. The new portal is expected to be more efficient.
• Most of  issues in past year have been related to Version 2. Additionally, there have been difficulties encountered while integrating Version 2 forms with Version 3.
• It is expected that all problems will be addressed once the integration is completed in the middle of next year.