Para 5 - Qualifications of an e-Return Intermediary - Electronic Furnishing of Return of Income Scheme, 2004

Qualifications of an e-Return Intermediary. 5. (1) An e-Return intermediary shall have the following qualifi cations, namely :— (a) it must be an employer, being a registered company or a statutory body, who :— (i) has been allotted a valid Tax Deduction Account Number (TAN); (ii) has at least 100 employees having taxable income as per the last return of tax deducted at source furnished by him; (iii) has furnished the return of tax deducted at source within the time prescribed under the Act for the last three years; or (b) (i) it must be a firm of Chartered Accountants or Advocates which has, for at least last three years, been in practice in the matters relating to direct taxes and has returned total income of two lakh rupees or more in each of the last two years; (ii) he must be a Chartered Accountant or Advocate who has, for at least ten years, been in practice in the matters relating to direct taxes and has returned total income of two lakh rupees or more in each of the last two years; or (c) A registered company, including a bank, having a net worth of five crore rupees or more and engaged in the business of providing financial services during the last five years. (2) He must have set up and commissioned hardware and software resources prescribed in Schedule 'B' of this scheme. (3) He must have at least class II digital signature certificate from any of the Certifying Authorities authorised to issue such certificates by the Controller of Certifying Authorities. (4) He should have in place security procedure to the satisfac tion of e-Return Administrator to ensure that there is no misuse of the facility and that no programs are resident/run on the system used to log on to the computer system of the department, which could cause any kind of harm to such system. (5) The applicant should have necessary archival, retrieval and, security policy for the e-Returns which would be filed through him, as decided by e-Return Administrator from time to time. (6) The e-Return intermediary or its Principal Officer, must not have been convicted for any professional misconduct, fraud, embezzlement or any criminal offence by any court in India or by any professional body, as the case may be.