IPA to exempt firms on merit

Business

THE extension of deadline for companies to submit their annual returns to the Investment Promotion Authority (IPA) will be given depending on merit, according to the authority.
IPA had put out a notice early this year for companies to submit their returns by next Thursday to take advantage of the waivered penalty fees online.
According to IPA, the submission of returns was to be done in preparation for the deregistration exercise planned for the end of this year.
Due to the importance of the exercise, the IPA will be waiving the usual penalty fees of K1000 for any annual return which is filed online by July 20. It is an incentive for companies to comply before the actual deregistration exercise begins.
Whether there will be an extension to the deadline, IPA told The National:  “Companies are obliged to file annual returns every year. IPA has given considerations to companies given the tough economic times and decided to waive penalty fees. We have gone out on this awareness since May and we’ve moved the deadline of June 30 to July 20. Any extensions will be considered according to its own merits and IPA’s considerations according to its mandate.”
IPA had been receiving response from companies to submit their returns.
“We had a very good response from companies in particular our regular clients, most of them agents, for example, law and accounting firms,” the company statement said.
“In the first two months, over 900 companies complied (less than 1 per cent).
“They filed over 2000 annual returns.
“This exercise was aimed at encouraging companies to comply and it’s good to see that we’ve got their attention.
“We have seen an increase in companies lodging annual returns.
“We have also removed a number of companies from the defaulting list on our website bringing it down by at least a thousand.”