Wake up call! 30th September 2015!

Wake up call! 30th September 2015!

File Foreign Assets and Liabilities Return (FLA Return) with RBI

What is it?

An Annual return on the Foreign Assets and Liabilities of the Company, notified under FEMA 1999. Return to be filed under A.P. (DIR series) and to be submitted to the Department of Statistics and Information Management, RBI Mumbai.

Which Companies need to file this?

It is required to be submitted directly by all the Indian companies which have received FDI (foreign direct investment) and/or made FDI abroad (i.e. overseas investment) in the previous year(s) including the current year i.e. who hold foreign Assets or Liabilities in their balance sheets.

Due dates to file it?

FLA Return is mandatory under FEMA 1999 and companies are required to submit the same based on audited/ unaudited account by 15th July every year through official email id of any authorized person of company like CFO, Director, Company Secretary at fla@rbi.org.in

Before 30th September each year, audited details are required to be filed.

Format of filing it?

The FLA Return has to be submitted in excel based format, which has inbuilt checks and validations. The latest format of FLA Return is available on RBI's website at the following link:
https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/BS_ViewFemaForms.aspx

For detailed FAQs on FLA Return you may please read more on the following link:
https://rbi.org.in/Scripts/FAQView.aspx?Id=95

Points to note:

1. FLA return is an annual return and is not dependent on whether the Company has received or given out foreign exchange in the past year.

2. Applicable to registered partnership firms as well

If the Partnership firms, Branches or Trustees have any outward FDI outstanding as of end-March of the reporting year, then they are required to send a request mail to get a dummy CIN number which will enable them to file the Excel based FLA Return. If any entity has already got the dummy CIN number from the previous survey, they should use the same CIN number in the current survey also. It is also informed that these dummy CIN numbers are provided by RBI for filling the excel based FLA return only and not for any other purpose.

3. It is separate and independent of the Annual Performance Report

4. FLA return being a mandatory reporting compliance, any non-compliance will attract stringent penal provisions and penalties under FEMA, and the officers of the company would be held liable consequently.