Audit reports and accountants' reports Became Form 181
Form 10BC
Audit report under (sub-rule (12) of rule 17CA) of the Income-tax Rules, 1962, in the case of an electoral trust
What this form is
Form 10BC belongs to the regime of the Income-tax Act, 1961. The same ground is now covered by Form 181 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026. It is an audit report: an accountant examines something and reports on it in the department’s own words, in the department’s own boxes. The assessee does not write this one. An accountant signs it, and the assessee files what the accountant has signed.
Which provision requires it
Left, the provision as the department’s description names it. Right, where the same ground is covered now — taken from the department’s own section and rule concordances, not worked out by us.
| What the description names | Where it sits now |
|---|
| rule 17CA of the 1962 Rules | rule 289 |
What it became under the 2026 Rules
The description changed with the number, and the change is worth reading: the 2026 wording points at the Income-tax Act, 2025, and a great deal of what used to sit in a section of the 1961 Act now sits in a Schedule.
| Under the 2026 Rules | What the department calls it |
|---|
| Form 181 | Audit report under rule 289(12) in the case of the electoral trust |
Where you meet it
You meet it in the run-up to the filing date, when a claim in the return needs an accountant’s report behind it. The report goes in separately from the return, and it usually has to be in before the return is.
Near it
Other forms we have put in the same group — audit reports and accountants' reports.
Form 3AC, Form 3AD, Form 3AE, Form 3CA, Form 3CB, Form 3CD, Form 3CE, Form 3CEA, Form 3CLA, Form 5BA, Form 6B, Form 6D
Get the form
Published by the Income Tax Department. The link goes to their file, not a copy of it — a form is revised without notice and a stale copy is worse than none. Both are here because a notice, an order or a judgment may name either number.
What here is the department’s and what is ours. The form number, the sentence describing it, and the pairing of the old form with the form it became are all taken from the Income Tax Department’s own published forms concordance, and are reproduced as the department wrote them — including its abbreviations and its occasional typing errors. Everything else on this page is ours: the plain-English account of what the form is, the reading of which provision requires it, the grouping the form sits in, the note on where you meet it, and the selection of cases. The department has not said that this form serves that section; we have read that off the description and off its own section concordance, and we can be wrong. Before you rely on any of it, open the form.