पाठशाला Pathshala · नियम Niyam, Law and compliance · Lesson 05 · Start

The compliance calendar for a private limited company

Four rulebooks, about thirty dates, and a late fee that runs by the day. A calendar is cheaper than a reminder from the Registrar.

Pathshala, The Founder Library · 11 October 2026 · 7 min read

A company that has done nothing wrong can still pay ₹100 a day, every day, for a form nobody filed. The Companies Act charges that as an additional fee, not a penalty, so there is no hearing and no discretion. Compliance for a small company is not a question of honesty. It is a question of whether somebody owns the calendar.

This lesson does three things. It names the four rulebooks a private limited company answers to and the clock each one runs. It puts every recurring filing on a single calendar, checked on 10 October 2026, with the form name and the fee for missing it. And it sets the monthly ritual that keeps the calendar honest, because a list is only a list until someone reads it on a fixed day.

Four rulebooks, four clocks

The Companies Act 2013, administered by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs through the Registrar of Companies, runs on the annual general meeting. Everything in it dates from the AGM or from the financial year end. The Income-tax Act 2025, in force since 1 April 2026, runs two clocks: a monthly one for the tax you deduct from others and a quarterly one for the advance tax you pay on your own profit, with the return at the end. GST runs monthly, or quarterly with monthly payments for a company under ₹5 crore, with an annual return in December. Labour law, for a company with employees, runs monthly on provident fund and insurance contributions, and annually on a set of registers and returns that vary by State.

The four do not talk to each other. A chartered accountant usually handles two of them, a company secretary a third, and the founder is left holding the fourth and the job of remembering that the other three exist. The calendar below is the join.

The company law year

The board must meet. Section 173 requires the first meeting within 30 days of incorporation and at least four a year after that; a small company, an OPC or a recognised startup may hold two, one in each half of the calendar year, at least 90 days apart. Minutes are the proof. A company that cannot produce minutes of four meetings has, in the Registrar’s eyes, held none.

The members must meet once a year. Section 96 requires the annual general meeting within six months of the financial year end, so by 30 September for a March year end, with the first AGM allowed nine months from the close of the first financial year and never more than fifteen months between two AGMs. The AGM adopts the audited accounts, and the two filings that define the company law year date from it: AOC-4 with the financial statements within 30 days under section 137(1), and MGT-7, or MGT-7A for a small company or OPC, with the annual return within 60 days under section 92(4). Where an auditor is appointed or reappointed at the AGM, ADT-1 goes to the Registrar within 15 days.

Two filings sit outside the AGM cycle and are missed for that reason. DPT-3, the return of deposits, is due by 30 June every year with figures as on 31 March, and it covers not only deposits but transactions the rules say are not deposits, which is where a founder’s loan to the company is reported. And every director’s KYC. Under Rule 12A of the directors’ rules as it stands on 10 October 2026, amended on 31 December 2025, a person holding a DIN files DIR-3 KYC Web by 30 June of every third financial year and within 30 days of any change in mobile number, email or residential address; before the amendment it was an annual filing. A DIN that misses it is deactivated, and a deactivated director cannot sign the company’s forms.

The tax year

A company pays tax on its own profit in advance. Section 408 of the Income-tax Act 2025 sets four instalments of the year’s estimated tax: not less than 15 per cent by 15 June, 45 per cent by 15 September, 75 per cent by 15 December and the whole by 15 March. A loss-making startup owes nothing and still benefits from the estimate, because the quarter it turns profitable is the quarter the instalment becomes real.

The tax it deducts from others runs monthly. Rule 218 requires deposit within seven days of the end of the month of deduction, with March’s deposit due 30 April, and Rule 219 requires the quarterly statements by 31 July, 31 October, 31 January and 31 May. The [TDS lesson](/library/tds-tax-you-deduct-and-why-it-trips-startups) has the rates. The return itself follows the audit: the company return is due 31 October, or 30 November where a transfer-pricing report applies, with the tax audit report a month earlier when business turnover exceeds ₹1 crore, or ₹10 crore where cash receipts and payments are each under 5 per cent. A belated return can be filed until 31 December with a fee.

The GST month

GSTR-1 by the 11th and GSTR-3B with payment by the 20th for a monthly filer, or the Invoice Furnishing Facility by the 13th, PMT-06 by the 25th and a quarterly GSTR-3B by the 22nd or 24th under the QRMP scheme. The annual return GSTR-9 is due 31 December and exempt below ₹2 crore of turnover. The one GST date that belongs on the company’s calendar rather than the accountant’s is 30 November: the last day to claim any input credit for the previous financial year under section 16(4). The [GST lesson](/library/gst-registration-invoicing-first-filings) covers the mechanics.

Labour, from the twentieth employee

The Employees’ Provident Funds Act applies to an establishment with 20 or more employees, and the contribution is 12 per cent of basic wages, dearness allowance and retaining allowance from the employee with a matching share from the employer, remitted monthly with the electronic challan-cum-return after the close of each wage month. Employees’ State Insurance applies at a lower headcount in most States and to employees under a wage ceiling. Both are monthly, both are portal-driven, and both are the kind of thing payroll software handles correctly only if someone turned the feature on. Add the State’s Shops and Establishments registration, professional tax where the State levies it, and the internal committee and annual report under the POSH Act once the headcount requires one, and the labour clock is set.

Nobody is fined for being small. Companies are fined for being late, and late is the one thing a calendar prevents.

What late actually costs

The MCA figures are the ones to fear, because they have no ceiling. Under the Companies (Registration Offices and Fees) Rules, a delay in filing under sections 92 or 137 attracts an additional fee of ₹100 a day. Miss AOC-4 and MGT-7 by a hundred days, which happens when nobody notices until the following AGM, and the company pays ₹20,000 in additional fees before any penalty is considered, for two forms whose normal fee is a few hundred rupees. Other MCA forms scale instead: two times the normal fee up to 30 days late, rising to twelve times beyond 180 days.

The tax figures are smaller per day and compound differently. A late TDS statement is ₹200 a day capped at the tax deductible; late deduction is 1 per cent a month and late deposit 1.5 per cent a month; a late GSTR-3B is ₹50 a day capped at ₹2,000 for a company under ₹1.5 crore of turnover. None of these ruins a company. What ruins a company is the pattern: the GSTIN cancelled for non-filing, the director disqualified for a run of unfiled annual returns, the due diligence that finds four years of DPT-3 never filed and prices the clean-up into the valuation.

The monthly ritual, on the first Monday

Put every date above into one shared calendar with two owners on each: the professional who files and the founder who checks. On the first Monday of each month, open the checklist, tick what was filed last month with the acknowledgement number, and read the next thirty days aloud. Ask one question of the accountant and one of the company secretary: is anything due before we next speak that you do not yet have the papers for? In April, reset the list and book the auditor. In September, confirm the AGM date in writing, because every October and November filing hangs from it. Ten minutes a month, and the Registrar never has a reason to write.

Nothing here is legal or tax advice; confirm the current rule with a chartered accountant or lawyer before acting.