Dhananjay Jadhav

Cost audit reports aren't just compliance filings — they directly feed decisions on trade remedies, tariffs, drug pricing, subsidies, and more. Here's where the data actually goes.

Cost records and cost audit are two separate obligations with two different thresholds — and the export exemption relieves you of one, not the other. A practical guide to Section 148 applicability: the Rule 3 and Rule 4 tests, who is genuinely exempt, the CRA forms, the September deadlines, and what non-compliance actually costs.

India now has 25 Cost Accounting Standards. This guide sets out all of them, explains which ones do the heavy lifting in practice — CAS-4 for GST valuation, CAS-25 for inventory, CAS-2 for capacity — and identifies exactly where they carry statutory force under the Companies Act and the CGST Rules.