CATEGORY: NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
17 November 2020
1. Public accountants who wish to renew their certificate of registration for 2021 (2021 PA renewal) are to submit their application for renewal via BizFile+ (http://www.bizfile.gov.sg) – ACRA’s online filing system - from 1 December 2020.
Renewal Criteria
2. A public accountant must satisfy all criteria for renewal before the certificate of registration can be renewed. This includes compliance with the Continuing Professional Education (CPE) requirements, orders of the Public Accountants Oversight Committee (PAOC) and payment of amounts outstanding to ACRA. Please refer to paragraph 7 for extension of time given to public accountants to meet the CPE requirements for 2021 PA renewal.
Extension of Renewal Period
3. As the BizFile+ portal will not be available from 10 December 2020 (Thursday), 6 pm to 15 December 2020 (Tuesday), 8am for system upgrade, public accountants will be given an additional two weeks i.e. up to 14 January 2021 instead of 31 December 2020, to submit their renewal applications. Please refer to paragraph 14 on the Important Timelines for the 2021 PA renewal.
CPE Requirements
4. Public accountants are required to obtain at least 120 CPE hours in each rolling 3-year period, of which at least 90 hours must be in structured learning and at least 20 hours must be acquired through structured learning in each calendar year. There are also minimum CPE hours to be acquired in each core expertise area.
5. The relevant rolling 3-year period for 2021 PA renewal is from 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2020, and is only applicable for public accountants who are registered before 2019.
6. Please note that the CPE hours relating to the PAOC order under the Practice Monitoring Programme are in addition to the CPE hours required for the renewal of the public accountant’s registration, and should not be included as part of the CPE hours in the renewal application.
Extension of time to meet CPE Requirements
7. For 2021 PA renewal, having considered that public accountants may have difficulty in meeting the CPE requirements due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the PAOC is allowing public accountants who need more time to fulfil the CPE requirements, up to 30 June 2021 to do so without having to apply for CPE exemption.
Public Accountants registered for the purpose of becoming Judicial Managers (JM) and/or Trustees in bankruptcy (TIB) and not to perform audits of financial statements (JM-PAs)
8. As the Insolvency, Restructuring and Dissolution Act 2018 (IRDA) has come into effect on 30 July 2020, JM-PAs who were appointed as JMs or TIBs of companies placed under judicial management or a bankruptcy order before the commencement of the IRDA, for which the JM or TIB work is still ongoing, can submit an application to renew their registration as a public accountant, until the completion of these cases. The renewal of registration is subject to the applicants meeting renewal requirements.
9. ACRA will be writing to JM-PAs to obtain details of their pending pre-IRDA cases.
Renewal Fee
10. The fee payable for the renewal of a certificate of registration for 2021 is as follows:
a. A fixed sum of $600; and
b. A variable sum as set out in the table below:
| Fee payable by public accountant in respect of each accounting entity in which he is practising as at 1 January 2021 |
Number of listed corporations audited by the accounting entity from 1 January to 31 December 2020 | |||
| 0 | 1-10 | 11-100 | >200 | |
| $150 | $250 | $650 | $1050 | |
Public Accounting Entity in which the Public Accountant is practising
11. Under the “Public Accounting Entity in which the Public Accountant is practising” section, public accountants are required to indicate the number of clients, which they and the entities in which they are practising, have audited during the year.
12. For the purpose of the renewal application, public accountants declaring the number for “Clients which are public listed entities on the Singapore Exchange (SGX)” should cover the period from 1 January to 31 December 2020. For the remaining categories of clients, the number declared can be based on the period from 1 January 2020 up to the date of the renewal application submitted in December 2020.
13. Public accountants submitting application for renewal via BizFile+ should avoid launching multiple login windows or tabs concurrently, to prevent any conflict in the transaction that they are submitting through the BizFile+ portal.
Important Timeline
14. The timelines for the 2021 PA renewal are as follow:
| Date | Activity |
|---|---|
|
1 Dec 2020 to 14 Jan 2021 |
Public accountants to submit renewal applications via BizFile+ |
|
15 Jan 2021 to 14 Feb 2021 |
Public accountants who fail to file the renewal applications by 14 Jan 2021 may apply for extension of time via BizFile+ and submit their renewal application in the same transaction. |
| 15 Feb 2021 | Public accountants who fail to file their renewal applications by 14 Feb 2021 will be notified of the removal of their names and particulars from the Register of Public Accountants (Register). |
|
15 Feb 2021 to 7 Mar 2021 |
Public accountants whose names and particulars have been removed from the Register may apply via BizFile+ to be reinstated to the Register. |
15. If you need further clarification, you can send your enquiries through http://www.acra.gov.sg/enquiry.
