Who is responsible for filing Form 15CA, the remitter or the bank?
The remitter, meaning the person or company making the foreign payment, is legally responsible for filing Form 15CA under Section 195(6) of the Income Tax Act. The bank's role is only to verify that it has been filed before processing the transfer. The bank does not file it and cannot file it on your behalf.
Full Answer
A garment exporter in Tirupur made seven foreign payments over a financial year to a buying agent in Hong Kong. Each time, he visited Axis Bank, gave the payment instruction, and assumed the relationship manager was handling the paperwork as part of the forex service. The bank processed all seven payments. The RM had verified that the earlier payments appeared to be LRS-type and had processed them without flagging the 15CA requirement. During a scrutiny proceeding the following year, the Assessing Officer found seven outward remittances without 15CA filings.
The assumption that the bank handles 15CA is one of the most common and costly misunderstandings in foreign remittance compliance.
Section 195(6) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 places the filing obligation on the person responsible for paying any sum to a non-resident or foreign company. The word used in the provision is the person responsible for paying, which is you, the remitter. Rule 37BB, which prescribes the form and manner of furnishing Form 15CA (now Form 145), confirms this by specifying that the form shall be furnished by the person making the remittance.
Banks operating as Category I Authorised Dealers under FEMA are required by RBI guidelines to verify 15CA compliance before processing eligible remittances. Their obligation is verification, not filing. The bank checks whether the 15CA acknowledgement number you provide is valid on the Income Tax portal, whether the remitter's name and PAN match the portal record, and whether the remittance details are consistent with the documentation. If all checks pass, the bank proceeds. If any check fails, the bank holds the transfer.
The filing process sits entirely on your side. You log into the Income Tax e-filing portal, fill in Form 15CA (now Form 145) for your specific remittance, and submit. For Part C remittances, you must have the 15CB acknowledgement number from your CA before you can complete the submission. After filing, you download the 15CA acknowledgement PDF and submit it to your bank.
Shunya's CA team handles 15CA and 15CB for Indian businesses and NRIs — fully online, in 30 minutes.
Talk to a CA →You can authorise someone to file on your behalf. Your CA, your accountant, or a compliance service like shunya.so can file 15CA for you. For this, they either access your portal account with your credentials or are set up as an authorised representative under the portal's e-proceedings framework. Delegation does not transfer the legal compliance obligation. Under Section 195(6), if the 15CA is missing or incorrect, the liability sits with you as the remitter, not with the person you delegated to.
Banks also have their own parallel documentation requirements. Most banks ask for their A2 form for LRS transfers, or a purpose code declaration form for business remittances, alongside 15CA and 15CB. These are RBI and FEMA compliance requirements and they are the bank's own forms, not related to the Income Tax portal. Do not assume submitting 15CA to your bank satisfies their entire documentation list. Ask the forex desk specifically what forms they need beyond 15CA.
For companies making frequent foreign payments, the cleanest structure is a designated finance team member who owns the 15CA filing process for each payment, with a CA on call for 15CB preparation when needed. The 15CA acknowledgement numbers should be tracked in an internal register against each payment date and vendor, so that any scrutiny query can be answered with a complete record.
The exporter in Tirupur resolved his scrutiny matter by engaging a CA, preparing a detailed response with payment-purpose documentation, and demonstrating that TDS had been correctly assessed as not applicable. He narrowly avoided the Rs 7 lakh penalty. He now files 15CA for every payment before walking into the bank.
If my CA files 15CA on my behalf and makes a mistake in it, am I still liable?
Yes. Under Section 195(6) and Section 271-I, the compliance responsibility is with the remitter. If your CA files an incorrect 15CA and this leads to a penalty or a scrutiny issue, your CA may have a professional liability under ICAI's Code of Ethics, but for Income Tax purposes you remain the legally responsible party. This is why reviewing 15CA details before submission, even when your CA handles the filing, is important.
This article is for general information only. For your specific remittance, consult a practicing CA.
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