Every entity that has received Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and/or made Overseas Direct Investment (ODI) in the previous reporting period(s) or current reporting period is required to file an annual return on its Foreign Liabilities and Assets (FLA) to Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
To read the concept of Annual Return on FLA Click here.
In this article, I have elaborated on the information that is required to be filed with RBI and the steps to file the return.
Before starting with filling of the form, the first thing you need to do is select the financial year for which you are filing the Annual Return and then proceed.
The entire form is divided into five sections and the information that is expected to be provided are as follows:
Section I: Entity Details
This section is mostly about the basic details of the entity. However, few of the columns are prefilled based on the information you have provided at the time of “User Registration”. You are required to provide the remaining details such as the contact person information, the NIC Code depending upon the nature of business, account closing date, type of company etc.
Please note: where there are more than one business activities, you are required to select the activity which is your major source of revenue generation.
Section II: Financial Details
In this section, you required to provide the financial details of your entity. The details of the total paid up share capital, non-resident holdings, details of profit and loss account, reserves & surplus and sales & purchases made during the year are to be provided.
Where the entity has employees, actual number of employees on payroll for last two financial years is required to be mentioned in this section.
Section III: Foreign Liabilities (Investments made in India)
This section is required to be filled by entity that has brought FDI (i.e. non-resident investors who has made investment into the Indian entity). The section is divided into four blocks having specific set of requirements.
In Block 1: Details of the Foreign Direct Investors, who are individually holding more than 10% of the equity and preference shares, are required to be provided. It includes the name of the investor, country of the investor, liabilities and claims on direct investor, percentage of holding of equity and preference share capital.
In Block 2: Details of the Foreign Direct Investors, who are individually holding less than 10% of the equity and preference shares, are required to be provided. It includes the name of the investor, country of the investor, liabilities and claims on direct investor, percentage of holding of equity and preference share capital.
In Block 3: The details of investment (Portfolio Investments) other than FDI are required to be filled in this block. The details about the equity securities, money market instruments, bonds, disinvestments, percentage of equity and preference share capital are to be provided.
In Block 4: This is a residual category that includes all financial liabilities not considered as direct investment or portfolio investment. In this block, all financial outstanding liabilities (Trade Credit, Loans, Currency & Deposits, and other receivable & payable accounts) with foreign unrelated parties will be reported.
Further, if the share application money is received from foreign investor who does not hold equity shares of Indian reporting company as on reference date, then outstanding share application money will be disclosed under this block.
Section IV: Foreign Assets
Where the entity has made ODI, it has to provide the details of such ODI in this section. This section is again divided into four blocks having specific set of requirements.
In Block 1: Where the ODI made by the Indian entity is more that 10%, the reporting Indian entity needs to disclose the details in this block. The name of the entity where the investment is made, country details, details of equity held, reserves & surplus, profit & loss account of the entity in Abroad, details of imports, exports, total sales and total purchase are to be provided.
In Block 2: Where the ODI made by the Indian entity is less that 10%, the reporting Indian entity needs to disclose the details in this block. The name of the entity where the investment is made, country details, details of equity held, reserves & surplus, profit & loss account of the entity in abroad.
In Block 3: Any outstanding investments (foreign stock market investment) made by the reporting Indian entity, other than ODI will be reported in this block. It will include details about the equity securities, money market instruments, bonds, disinvestments.
In Block 4: This is a residual category that includes all financial claims not considered as direct investment or portfolio investment. All financial outstanding assets (Trade Credit, Loans, Currency & Deposits, and other receivable & payable accounts) with foreign unrelated Parties should be reported in this block.
Section V- Variation Report
This section is a residual category reflecting the status of all financial outstanding assets and liabilities with foreign unrelated parties and which is not considered as direct investments or portfolio investments. You are required to check on the box as “Yes” if all the information is correct. In case any of the information is incorrect, you can go back to the respective section and edit the information fed there.
Points to be noted:
1. The details are required to be fed for last two financial years (i.e. current and previous financial year).
2. Once you have filled in all information correctly, you will have to submit the form. You will receive a system generated acknowledgement for your records.
3. In case you wish to save the filled form, you can do the same by clicking on “Preview PDF file” and save it. This is not mandatory but suggested for your future references.
4. The due date for filing the return is July 15, every year.
Steps for logging into the Flair Portal:
Step 1: You are required to register your entity in the flair portal Click here for detailed step by step process for registration on RBI-Flair Portal.
Step 2: Once you have received the login credentials, use the credentials to login to the Portal.
Step 3: An OTP will be sent to the Email Id provided at the time of registration with the Flair Portal. Enter the OTP and login to the Portal.
Step 4: Once you are on the dashboard, click on the icon to the left side of the page showing menu. Click on “FLA online form”.
Step 5: Fill all the relevant and mandatory sections in the form. Please save and validate each page before proceeding to the next page.
Step 6: Once your form is all filed, review and submit the form.
Step 7: You will receive a system generated acknowledgement for your records.
Hope this article was useful to you. In case you have any specific query or looking a professional help to file FLA Annual Return for your entity, please write to me at anjalibansalcs@gmail.com.