"What does our trust actually have to file every year, and who in Pune checks it?" Two offices do, and they check different things. The Income Tax Department reads ITR-7 and the audit report sitting under it. The Charity Commissioner's Pune region holds the register entry that your filings are supposed to agree with. Most trustees who call us have the first half in hand and have never touched the second. We run both sides of the year from ₹2,999.
Which record do you have to settle before the filing season?
Settle what the entity is on paper before anyone opens the accounts. A public charitable trust sits on the Register of Public Trusts, and registration under section 18 of the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act 1950 is compulsory. A society is not an alternative to that here. Section 2(13) treats a society formed for a charitable or religious purpose as a public trust, so a Pune NGO registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 carries two records, and the same organisation holds both.
- A public charitable trust files ITR-7, gets its accounts audited where the receipts require it, and keeps the trustee entries on its register current.
- A Pune society carries the Registrar of Societies record and the public trust record together, so one resolution changing office bearers touches both.
- A private family trust claims no exemption under section 11, so it is assessed on the trustee or the beneficiaries and no Form 10B arises.
- A trust with live 80G approval owes a donation statement for the year, or its donors lose the deduction they were counting on.
That choice decides the return, the audit form and whether anything is owed to the Charity Commissioner at all. Get it wrong at the start and the whole year is filed in the wrong shape.
What documents does a Pune trustee have to put together?
The file we ask for is short and unforgiving, and two of its six items are where Pune trusts stall.
- The trust deed and every supplementary deed, with the registration receipt from the office that took it.
- PAN, the 12AB order or the provisional order, and the 80G approval letter where the trust holds one.
- Receipts and payments, income and expenditure and the balance sheet, tallied to the bank statements.
- The donor list with PAN and address for every donation that has to go into the statement.
- Trustee resolutions passed during the year, and the trustee list exactly as the register entry reads today.
- Title papers for immovable property standing in the trust's name. A registration application now travels with the document that evidences the trust's ownership of it, or its interest in it.
The last two are the stallers. Trustee lists go stale the moment somebody resigns, and donor lists arrive without PANs, which stops the certificates cold.
What does trust annual compliance cost in Pune?
| Component | What it covers | What it costs |
|---|---|---|
| Annual compliance package | Accounts, audit coordination, ITR-7 and the donation statement | From ₹2,999 |
| Statutory audit | Form 10B or Form 10BB signed and uploaded before the return goes in | Quoted on the size of your receipts |
| Change report | Trustee or property changes reported for your region | Prescribed government fee, confirmed before filing |
| PTEC for the year | The trust's own enrolment liability where a Schedule I entry reaches it | ₹2,500 for the entries that carry that rate |
| Deed registration | Duty computed through GRAS and the appointment at the correct Haveli office | Computed on the instrument before execution |
The audit line is the one that moves, because it follows your receipts, not a rate card. The forms themselves, the 85 per cent application test and the accumulation route are set out in the national trust annual compliance guide, and none of that changes because your office is in Pune.
How the annual cycle runs, step by step
- We open the year with last year's acknowledgement, your current register entry and your 12AB status, and list everything that moved.
- Accounts are drawn and reconciled to the bank, and the application of income is tested against the 85 per cent rule before anybody signs.
- The Chartered Accountant signs Form 10B or Form 10BB and it is uploaded first, because the return will not stand behind it.
- ITR-7 goes in next, the donation statement follows, and the donor certificates are generated from what that statement carries.
- Whatever the year threw up for the Charity Commissioner, usually a change report, is drafted and lodged for your region.
Which office holds your trust record, and where does the Pune filing land?
The Charity Commissioner's organisation works region wise. Maharashtra has ten Joint Charity Commissioner regions and Pune is one of them, with Ahilyanagar, Satara and Solapur as its subordinate offices. The Pune office is the Public Trusts Registration Office, Pune, and the organisation's portal is charity.maharashtra.gov.in. What competitor pages get wrong is the addressee. Your application or change report is not made to the Charity Commissioner at the top of the organisation. It goes to the Deputy or Assistant Charity Commissioner of the region or sub region where the trustee keeps an office for the trust, or where the trust property is situated.
Section 22 starts a ninety day clock the day a trustee or a trust property changes, and the report has to be in by then. Sufficient cause can buy more time from the registering officer, but that is a concession, not a plan. Immovable property adds one more errand, a prescribed memorandum for the sub registrar. Pune City registers documents through the Haveli series of Joint Sub Registrar offices, Haveli No. 1 to Haveli No. 27, and Pune Rural has 22 more, so a Talegaon godown never goes to a Haveli counter.
Maharashtra also changed the trustee rules with effect from 1 September 2025. There is now a cap on how many trustees a trust may hold for life. Where the deed is silent the continuing trustees appoint for up to five years at a time, so the list you file is worth reading against your own deed. Scheme and trustee appointment jurisdiction has also been moving from the civil court to the Charity Commissioner, and we check which forum applies before we file.
What else does a Pune trust owe through the year?
Income tax is not the whole calendar. A Pune trust with an office and staff picks up a short state stack, cheap to keep and expensive to forget.
- PTEC is the trust's own enrolment and the annual date is 31 March, with ₹2,500 the Schedule I rate for entries such as a person registered under the Maharashtra GST Act.
- PTRC is the separate employer certificate, needed only once there is a payroll, and the deduction runs at ₹200 a month with ₹300 in February.
- A trust office is an establishment under the Maharashtra Shops and Establishments Act 2017, which names a charitable trust and a registered society in terms, and registration is online to the Facilitator.
- Maharashtra raised that registration threshold to twenty workers with effect from 1 October 2025, and below it an establishment gives an intimation instead.
- The certificate is capped at ten years and renewal is applied for at least thirty days before expiry, so read the expiry date on the copy in your file.
- Both sides contribute to the Maharashtra Labour Welfare Fund, employer and employee, in small amounts twice a year, so put those two dates on the same calendar.
Who is filing trust compliance in Pune right now?
- A wholesale trader in Camp, near the Budhwar Peth lanes, who is one of three trustees of a family religious trust and has never filed a change report.
- That same trust owns its shop unit, so property papers travel with the deed each time the entry is corrected.
- A warehousing and logistics operator at Talegaon whose staff welfare trust runs a payroll, holds PTRC for it, and files ITR-7 in the October window that applies to audited trusts.
None of the three needs an office visit. Income tax runs on the e-filing portal, the shops registration goes online to the Facilitator, and only a deed for registration puts anybody in a queue.
Why LegalX India in Pune
Our Pune office is at Yashwant Nagar, Near Bharatiya Samajseva, Yerwada, Pune 411006, and that address decides nothing about your trust. Your own office for the trust, and where the trust property lies, decide which Deputy or Assistant Charity Commissioner takes your papers. We confirm it before we lodge anything. You get a CA and a CS on the file, 10+ years of filing behind them, and a fixed quote before work starts. Ask for one and a CA calls back within 30 minutes.