Assessing Organization Compliance with Statutory Requirements

Step-by-Step Guide

1. You work in the finance department of a large organisation and have been asked to assess the organisation’s compliance with statutory requirements. You have identified that it is outside of your scope of operation but there is no one else who can undertake the task. The requirements are that you examine current policies and practice, assess compliance and make recommendations for improvement.

You will need to:

a.    Scope the task.

b.    Identify the requirements.

c.    Conduct an examination of current practice and policies.

d.    Identify and involve others.

e.    Make recommendations.

The question is asking for the process you would follow, rather than the actual policies and processes.

a.    Scope the task….What are you expected to do?

b.    Identify the requirements….. What would be your plan of action?

c.    Conduct an examination of current practice and policies….How would you complete this task?

d.    Identify and involve others….Who would you involve?

e.    Make recommendations….How would you submit this report? What actions/follow-up should be included

2. What will determine how often you generate reports?

3. Under the Code of Professional Conduct, what action should you take if you become aware of discrepancies between what the client has told you and some of the documentation that you have examined?

4. An existing client approaches you in early November stating that the income tax return of a friend has not been prepared or lodged for the previous financial year. Your client is aware that tax agents can lodge later than the October 31 deadline so requests that you assist the friend and prepare and lodge the tax return to avoid penalties. Under the Code of Professional Conduct, what advice do you provide to your client to pass on to the friend?

5. A professional client for whom you have acted for many years has provided documents and claims for an overseas trip that was taken to attend a conference. You have prepared the tax return on the basis of that information. When the client comes in to sign the tax return they talk about the overseas trip and show you photographs of the family holidaying around Europe after the conference. What do you need to do

6. Describe the distinction between legislative requirements and the Code of Professional Conduct.

7. You have been acting as a tax agent for a married couple for many years. They are jointly involved in a business. They have recently become divorced and you are preparing their individual tax returns. They have continued to run the business. In the past you have legitimately claimed certain deductions from the husband’s income. Now that they are divorced it is clear that claiming deductions for the ex-husband means that the ex-wife is unable to make similar claims to reduce her taxation liabilities. What would you do to resolve this situation?

7. One of the principles for the Code of Professional Conduct for agents, states:

‘You must take reasonable care in ascertaining a client’s state of affairs, to the extent that ascertaining the state of those affairs is relevant to a statement you are making or an activity you are undertaking on behalf of the client.’ What does this mean to you in terms of the manner in which you need to act, in explaining the impact of taxation on the individual and who is likely to be held responsible if an agent wilfully included false information, of which the client had no knowledge, in a tax return?

8. Describe the processes used to determine tasks and relevant conditions as they relate to workplace planning.

9. Conduct research and explain the importance of ethical practice in the financial services industry.

10. When setting goals you need to be clear about what is needed and how, why and when it can be achieved. Why is this important?

11. Why should organisations embrace change in technology and work practices?

12. What are the limitations placed on people working in the financial sector who do not meet training standards?

1. Scenario

1.a.Scope of Task

One of the major scopes of the task is to identify the compliance statutory requirement of the organisations (Body, 2008). Apart from that, the scope of the task will also highlight the policy and procedure of the organisations.

Policy of the company: The organization tries to make sure that everything  it does to remain based on the high quality management practices and is very much has legal frameworks along with complaint that will  provide the business environment to minimize the risk to all who operates within it (Benedict & Elliot, 2011).

b.Scope of the organization

The above policy will give the staff to covers the entire required statutory and compliance training which will exemplifies some of the major concern areas within the organization are given below:

-Given equal prospects, diversity and cross culture business environment  

-provide the right kind of financial services to the customers

-Keeping up with employment (Berry, 2009).

-Managing the Information

-Research group and governance

-Health and safety learning for employees

-Checklist on maintaining of the laws  (Bhattacharyya, 2010)

Statutory requirement of the organization will help the organization to achieve the sanction of license and permission which is required by the laws of the nations  for creating process of opening of new business or the expansion of the business (Bienstock & Mentzer,  2008).

d.Identifying the requirement:

Some of the major act that is needed to be followed while fulfilling up the statutory requirement are factories act , PF and ESI act and payment of wages act , shop and establishment act etc in order to complete the process.

Apart from the above , the major act that is needed to be followed are :

Labour legislation act

Minimum wages act

Bonus act

Professional tax act has been fulfilled by the company or not.  

Statutory management services

Licensing and registration of the company: IT is one of the most important laws which must be fulfilled as per the various labour laws act.  Registration of the company requires memorandum of association and article of association in order to be  the law abiding company rather than being called illegal (Brigham, 2010).