What Public Trusts Must File With the Charity Commissioner Each Year

Vikrant D. Shetty

Aug 24

11 min read

Updated: Aug 26

What Public Trusts Must File With the Charity Commissioner Each Year

The Maharashtra Public Trusts Act, 1950 and the Bombay Public Trusts Rules, 1951 impose three separate annual obligations on trustees: a forward-looking budget under Section 31A, filed at least one month before the accounting year begins; an audited balance sheet and income and expenditure account under Sections 33 and 34, filed after the year closes; and a Section 58 contribution statement, Schedule IX-C, declaring income chargeable to the Public Trusts Administration Fund. Each has its own form, deadline, and threshold, and treating them as a single accounts submission is the most common cause of default. This article explains what each filing actually requires and when it falls due.

Three Obligations, Not One

A trustee who treats the year's paperwork as a single "accounts submission" is missing two-thirds of the picture. The Act imposes at least three distinct duties on the trustees of a public trust once its income crosses the prescribed thresholds, and each duty has its own section and its own deadline.

The Budget Under Section 31A

Section 31A of the Act requires the trustee of a public trust with income above a prescribed amount to prepare and submit a budget: a statement of probable receipts and disbursements for a year that has not yet started. This document is filed before the accounting year begins, not after it ends, and it is mandatory for trusts above the income threshold, not optional. This is precisely where things go wrong in practice. Many trustees treat the budget as internal planning, something drawn up for the board's own benefit and shown to the Charity Commissioner only if someone happens to ask for it. Section 31A does not work that way. Read with Rule 16A of the Rules, it requires a trustee whose trust earns more than Rs 5,000 a year (for a trust of a public religious purpose) or Rs 10,000 (for other public trusts) to submit the budget in the form of Schedule VII-A, at least one month before the accounting year commences.

The Balance Sheet and Income-Expenditure Account Under Sections 33 and 34

Once the accounting year closes, a different obligation takes over entirely. Section 33 requires trustees to keep regular accounts, and where the trust's income crosses the prescribed threshold, to have those accounts audited by a chartered accountant or another authorised person. Section 34 then requires the auditor to prepare a balance sheet (Schedule VIII) and an income and expenditure account (Schedule IX), and to send copies, together with the audit report, to the trust and to the relevant Charity Commissioner's office. Unlike the budget, these documents look backward: they report what actually happened during the year that just ended, checked by an independent auditor, rather than what the trustees expected would happen.

The Budget: A Real Filing That Gets Mistaken for Internal Planning

The Section 31A budget resembles, on its surface, the kind of forward planning any reasonably organised trust would do anyway. That resemblance is precisely why trustees who never miss the retrospective accounts still let the prospective budget slip.

Who Has to File the Section 31A Budget?

The obligation kicks in once a trust's annual income exceeds Rs 5,000 for a public religious trust or Rs 10,000 for any other public trust, under Rule 16A. Below those figures, no statutory duty to file a budget arises, though a smaller trust can certainly prepare one anyway as a matter of good practice. Above the thresholds, though, it is not discretionary. Enforcement across regional Charity Commissioner offices has historically been patchy, and trustees sometimes read that patchiness as tacit permission to skip the filing. It is not. The obligation sits on the face of the statute regardless of how consistently any particular office chases it.

Timing: Before the Year Starts, Not After

The budget has to reach the Charity Commissioner at least a month before the accounting year it covers begins. For a trust running the standard April to March year, that puts the Schedule VII-A deadline at the end of February, well before the balance sheet for the preceding year has even been finalised. Trustees who think of "annual filing" as one event clustered around audit season routinely miss this earlier date. It falls at a moment when everyone's attention is on closing the books for the year that is ending, not on planning for the one that has not started.

What the Balance Sheet and Income-Expenditure Account Actually Show

Once the accounting year closes on the trust's balancing date, ordinarily 31 March, a separate set of documents falls due, and these are the ones most trustees think of first when someone mentions "annual compliance."

Schedule VIII and Schedule IX After Audit

For trusts above the audit threshold under Section 33, the auditor prepares the balance sheet (Schedule VIII) and the income and expenditure account (Schedule IX), certifies both, and flags any irregular, illegal, or improper expenditure, any failure to recover money owed to the trust, or any loss traceable to breach of trust or misconduct. Trusts below that threshold instead file simpler statements: Schedule IX-A for income and Schedule IX-B for expenditure, neither of which requires a formal audit.

What Happens if a Trust Misses the Filing Window?

The Rules set a fixed period for balancing the accounts after the year closes, and a further period for audit, after which the auditor's report and the accompanying schedules go to the trust and the Charity Commissioner. Trusts on the standard financial year are generally expected to have their accounts balanced, audited, and Schedule VIII and Schedule IX filed within roughly six months of the year's end. Missing that window is not just a paperwork lapse. It can draw the trust into the Charity Commissioner's supervisory powers over trust property and income, since unaudited or unfiled accounts are one of the more common triggers for a formal inquiry.

Schedule IX-C: The Contribution, and a Third Filing Entirely

Sitting alongside the budget and the balance sheet is a third obligation, and it is neither forward planning nor a simple financial statement: the contribution payable under Section 58 of the Act to the Public Trusts Administration Fund.

How the Contribution Is Worked Out

Every public trust files Schedule IX-C, a statement of the gross annual income chargeable to contribution, alongside Schedule VIII and Schedule IX. The contribution is a percentage of that gross income, and the rate itself has been fought over in court for years. The Act permits a levy of up to 5%, but after judicial scrutiny of whether that rate actually correlates with the Charity Commissioner's administrative costs, the figure applied in practice has generally settled lower. Collections under a related notification were stayed by the Bombay High Court for a long stretch between 2009 and 2025, an embargo that was finally lifted in mid-2025, leaving the State Government to work out and notify a fresh rate under Section 58(4). Trustees filling in Schedule IX-C should check the current notified rate rather than assume the figure that applied a few years ago still holds.

Who Is Exempt From the Section 58 Contribution?

Not every trust that files Schedule IX-C ends up paying the contribution. Trusts below a prescribed income threshold, trusts whose objects are confined to secular education, medical relief, or veterinary treatment, certain public libraries, and trusts engaged in disaster relief are exempt from the levy under the Rules, though the schedule itself is generally still required to establish that the exemption applies.

What Never Gets Filed: Internal Budgets, Resolutions, and Planning Papers

Separate from the three statutory obligations above sits everything trustees produce purely for their own governance: internal budget workings for a board meeting, resolutions approving expenditure, minutes of deliberations, multi-year financial plans. None of it goes to the Charity Commissioner as a matter of routine.

Where the Confusion Actually Comes From

The word "budget" is doing double duty here, and that is the root of most of the confusion this article opened with. There is the Schedule VII-A budget: a statutory document, fixed form, fixed deadline, fixed recipient. And there is the ordinary internal budget every reasonably run trust prepares for itself: revised as often as the trustees like, never leaving the boardroom unless the trust chooses to share it, with no prescribed format whatsoever. Because both go by the same name and both concern the trust's money, trustees sometimes assume satisfying one takes care of the other, or that because the internal version is informal, the statutory one must be too. Neither assumption survives contact with the statute. A trust can run an admirably tight internal budgeting process and still be in default of Section 31A simply because the Schedule VII-A form never made it to the Charity Commissioner on time.

Why Bother With the Internal Version Anyway

Even though internal budgets and trustee resolutions are not filed routinely, the Charity Commissioner's office can demand them during an inquiry, and a trust with its internal financial planning in reasonable shape generally finds both the annual audit and the Schedule VII-A budget easier to put together, since the two draw on much the same underlying numbers. A trust that budgets seriously each year, even informally, tends to produce a more defensible income and expenditure account when audit season arrives, because the figures being audited were planned for rather than pieced together after the fact.

Comparison: What Gets Filed and What Does Not

Document	Statutory basis	Statutory filing?	When due	Purpose
Budget (Schedule VII-A)	Section 31A, Rule 16A	Yes, for trusts above the income threshold	At least one month before the accounting year begins	Forecast of probable receipts and disbursements for the coming year
Balance Sheet (Schedule VIII)	Section 34, Rule 19	Yes	Within the prescribed period after audit, generally within about six months of year end	Statement of assets and liabilities as at the balancing date
Income and Expenditure Account (Schedule IX)	Section 34, Rule 19	Yes	Filed together with the balance sheet	Statement of actual income earned and expenditure incurred during the year
Schedule IX-C (contribution statement)	Section 58	Yes	Filed together with Schedule VIII and IX	Declares gross annual income chargeable to contribution to the Public Trusts Administration Fund
Internal budget / financial plan	None (internal governance practice)	No, unless specifically called for	As adopted by the trustees	Working document for the trust's own financial management
Trustee resolutions / minutes	None (internal governance practice)	No, unless specifically called for	As recorded	Internal record of trustee decisions

Frequently Asked Questions

Does every public trust have to file a budget with the Charity Commissioner?

No. The Section 31A and Rule 16A obligation applies once a trust's annual income exceeds Rs 5,000 for a public religious trust, or Rs 10,000 for any other public trust. Below those figures, there is no statutory requirement to file a Schedule VII-A budget, though nothing stops smaller trusts from preparing one for their own use.

Is the budget the same document as the balance sheet?

No, and confusing the two is where most of the trouble starts. The budget (Schedule VII-A) forecasts receipts and disbursements for the year about to begin, filed before that year starts. The balance sheet (Schedule VIII) reports the trust's actual position at the end of a year that has already closed, prepared after audit. Different sections, different forms, different deadlines.

What happens if a trust misses the Section 31A budget deadline?

The Charity Commissioner's office can ask for an explanation, and a pattern of default can feed into broader scrutiny of the trust's compliance generally. Enforcement of the budget requirement has, in practice, been less consistent than enforcement of the audited accounts, but that inconsistency does not erase the underlying obligation, and trustees should not mistake it for a safe harbour.

Do all trusts need their accounts audited?

Only trusts whose income crosses the Section 33 threshold require a formal audit by a chartered accountant or authorised auditor, producing Schedule VIII and Schedule IX. Trusts below that threshold file simplified income and expenditure statements under Schedule IX-A and Schedule IX-B instead, with no formal audit requirement.

What is Schedule IX-C, and is it the same as an audit report?

Schedule IX-C states the trust's gross annual income chargeable to the Section 58 contribution to the Public Trusts Administration Fund. It travels alongside the balance sheet and income and expenditure account, but its job is different: calculating a levy, not reporting the trust's overall financial position. Trusts working exclusively in secular education, medical relief, or veterinary treatment, among other categories, are exempt from the contribution itself, though they generally still need to file the schedule to establish that exemption.

Are internal trustee budgets or board resolutions ever filed with the Charity Commissioner?

Not as a matter of routine. These stay internal governance documents and sit outside the standard annual filing package. The Charity Commissioner's office can require production of any trust record, internal budgets and resolutions included, during a specific inquiry or under a direction issued under the Act's supervisory provisions.

Can a trust be penalised for an informal internal budget process even if the statutory filings are on time?

The statutory obligations turn on whether Schedule VII-A, Schedule VIII, Schedule IX, and Schedule IX-C are filed correctly and on time, not on how polished the trust's internal planning documents look. Even so, a trust whose internal financial records are in disarray usually finds it harder to produce accurate figures for the statutory filings themselves, which can end up affecting compliance indirectly.

What form is used to file the Section 31A budget?

The budget required under Section 31A of the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act, 1950, read with Rule 16A of the Bombay Public Trusts Rules, 1951, is filed in Schedule VII-A. It sets out probable receipts and disbursements for the accounting year about to begin and must reach the Charity Commissioner at least one month before that year starts.

What is the difference between Schedule IX-A, Schedule IX-B and Schedule IX?

Schedule IX is the income and expenditure account filed by trusts above the Section 33 audit threshold, prepared and certified by an auditor. Schedule IX-A and Schedule IX-B are simplified income and expenditure statements filed instead by trusts below that threshold, without a formal audit requirement, though the figures reported must still accurately reflect the trust's actual receipts and payments for the year.

Who can audit a public trust's accounts under Section 33?

Section 33 of the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act, 1950 requires trusts above the prescribed income threshold to have their accounts audited by a chartered accountant or another person authorised under the Act to audit trust accounts, who then certifies the balance sheet and income and expenditure account and flags any irregular or improper expenditure.

What is the standard accounting year for a public trust in Maharashtra?

Most public trusts follow the standard financial year running from 1 April to 31 March as their balancing date, though a trust can adopt a different accounting year with the Charity Commissioner's approval. All statutory deadlines, including the Section 31A budget and the post-audit filings, run from whichever accounting year the trust has adopted.

Can the Charity Commissioner initiate an inquiry solely because a trust's accounts are unaudited?

Yes. Unaudited or unfiled accounts are among the more common triggers for the Charity Commissioner to exercise supervisory powers over a trust's property and income under the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act, 1950, which can lead to a formal inquiry into the trust's affairs and, in serious cases, removal or suspension of trustees.

Does a newly registered public trust have to file a budget in its first year?

A newly registered trust becomes subject to the Section 31A budget obligation once its income crosses the prescribed threshold, Rs 5,000 for a public religious trust or Rs 10,000 for other public trusts, under Rule 16A. If the trust's projected income for its first full accounting year exceeds the threshold, the budget obligation applies from that year onward.

What rate applies to the Section 58 contribution today?

The Act permits a contribution of up to five percent of gross annual income, but the rate actually notified and collected has been the subject of litigation, including a stay by the Bombay High Court between 2009 and 2025 that was lifted in mid-2025. Trustees should confirm the current notified rate under Section 58(4) rather than rely on a figure from an earlier year.