Registered Co-ops to now pay audit fee

GANGTOK, 28 Nov: All Cooperative Societies in the state registered with the Cooperation Department will now have to pay an audit fee fixed by the Department. The audit fee payable has been fixed depending on the annual turnover of the particular cooperative society.
The audit rates payable range from Rs. 500 to Rs.10,000 depending on the volume of business.
In the process, the department has done away with the lump sum audit fee being earlier charged from the Apex Cooperative Societies.
Further, those cooperative societies whose audits were being conducted by empanelled chartered accountants are to remit 10% of the fee payable to the chartered accountants to the state government as audit fee. This remittance of the audit fees is to be made into the audit fee fund maintained by SISCO and administered by the Registrar, Cooperative Societies.
Only newly registered cooperative societies have been declared to be exempt from payment of this fee for a period of one year from the date of their registration.