Choosing a CA
Short answer
Fees track complexity, not postcode. In Bangalore a straightforward salaried return is commonly ₹1,000–2,000, a business return with books runs from about ₹5,000 and rises where a tax audit applies, and annual private-limited compliance — accounts, audit and ROC filings — typically starts around ₹25,000 a year. The ICAI publishes a recommended minimum fee scale that most established firms price at or above.
Why nobody publishes a price list
Two reasons, and only one of them is self-serving. The honest one is that the same-sounding job varies enormously: “file my ITR” is twenty minutes for a salaried employee with one Form 16 and two days for a founder with ESOPs, capital gains, foreign shares and a proprietorship. The second is that the ICAI's professional-conduct rules restrict how chartered accountants may advertise, which makes most firms cautious about publishing rate cards.
What follows are market ranges observed in Bangalore, not any single firm's quotation. Treat them as a sanity check on a quote you have been given.
Indicative ranges
For individuals and small businesses, the spread is wide but predictable:
- Salaried return (ITR-1 / ITR-2): roughly ₹1,000–2,000, more where capital gains or foreign assets are involved.
- Business or professional return with books (ITR-3): from about ₹5,000, rising where a tax audit under Section 44AB applies.
- GST registration and monthly returns: commonly billed as a monthly retainer scaled to invoice volume.
- Private limited company, annual: accounts, statutory audit and ROC filings typically start around ₹25,000 a year.
- Company incorporation: professional fee plus government fees and stamp duty, which vary by state and authorised capital.
The four things that actually move the number
Volume of transactions, not revenue. A company with ₹2 crore of turnover across forty invoices is cheaper to serve than one with ₹50 lakh across four thousand.
The state of the books when you arrive. Cleaning up two years of unreconciled records is a separate project, and honest firms will price it separately rather than absorbing it and resenting it.
Whether an audit applies, and which one. Statutory audit, tax audit and GST audit are distinct obligations with distinct thresholds.
Whether anything unusual happened during the year — a funding round, a foreign investor, an ESOP grant, a merger. Any one of these adds work that is not part of routine compliance.
When the cheapest quote is the expensive one
The pattern is consistent: work priced far below market is either done by someone unsupervised or done in a hurry, and the cost surfaces two years later during diligence, when a buyer or investor finds the gaps. Reconstructing a cap table or regularising missed ROC filings costs several multiples of what doing it correctly would have cost at the time.
That does not mean the highest quote is right either. It means you should ask what is included, who does it, and what happens when something goes wrong — and then compare like with like.
This article is general information, current at the date shown, and is not advice on your specific facts. Tax and corporate law change, and thresholds and deadlines are amended regularly — check the position before you act on it, or ask us.
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