Tax and Corporate Compliance: Registration, Filing Calendar, Assessment and Disputes

Everything in Nepali compliance is anchored to a calendar most finance systems cannot represent. The fiscal year begins on 1 Shrawan and ends at the close of Ashadh — roughly mid-July to mid-July, with the exact dates moving by a day or two each year. FY 2083/84 began on 17 July 2026. Statutory deadlines are expressed in Bikram Sambat months, so a due date of “the end of Poush” falls in mid-January and shifts annually. An enterprise resource planning system configured on Gregorian quarters will miss every one of them.

What follows covers the obligations we could tie to a dated instrument, and names the ones we could not. Those are left out rather than filled in from an unattributed secondary page.

Registrations before trading

An incorporated company is not yet a company that can operate. The Office of Company Registrar sets out four things that follow registration. Any sectoral approval — from the Department of Industry, from Nepal Rastra Bank for a financial institution, from the insurance regulator for an insurer — must be notified to the Registrar within 15 days. A permanent account number must be taken from the Inland Revenue Office before operations begin. A public company needs express trading permission once subscribed capital is paid up, and must publish its memorandum and articles within three months of getting it. A private company may begin on registration alone.

Value added tax registration runs on its own clock. Section 10(1) of the VAT Act 2052 requires an application before transactions commence. Section 10(2) gives a list of trades — hardware, sanitary ware, furniture, electronics and others — that must register within 30 days regardless. Temporary registration for an exhibition or fair must be cancelled within seven days of the event closing, on submission of the transaction details and payment of the tax.

The filing calendar

Obligation	Deadline	Instrument
VAT registration application	Before transactions begin; within 30 days for listed trades	VAT Act 2052, ss. 10(1), 10(2)
Cancellation of temporary VAT registration	Within 7 days of the event ending	VAT Act 2052, s. 10A(3)
Turnover tax, first instalment	End of Poush, on turnover to 20 Poush	Inland Revenue Department FAQ
Turnover tax, second instalment	End of Ashadh, on actual turnover to 20 Ashadh, less the first	Inland Revenue Department FAQ
Annual general meeting	Within 6 months of the fiscal year end; extendable by up to 3 months	Companies Act 2063, per Office of Company Registrar
Public company annual filings	Within 30 days of the annual general meeting	Companies Act 2063, per Office of Company Registrar
Private company audited statements	Within 6 months of the fiscal year end	Companies Act 2063, per Office of Company Registrar
VAT refund, ordinary carry-forward route	Departmental payment within 30 days	VAT Act 2052, s. 24(5)
VAT refund, exporter route	Departmental payment within 60 days	VAT Act 2052, s. 24(5)
Administrative review of a VAT assessment	Application within 30 days; decision within 60 days	VAT Act 2052, s. 31A
Finance Act 2083 waiver and settlement windows	End of Poush 2083	Finance Act 2083, ss. 34, 38–49

No instrument states an audit deadline directly. A private company must file audited financial statements within six months of the year end, so the audit has to be finished inside that window. A public company’s audit has to be finished in time for an annual general meeting that must itself be held within six months.

Deadlines we could not source

Five things a reader will reasonably have come here for are missing, for the same reason in each case. We could not obtain the operative text.

The income tax return deadline, and the instalment dates and percentages under section 94 of the Income Tax Act 2058, are not stated here. The Department’s consolidated Nepali text of the Act sits behind a viewer that does not release the file, and the Nepal Law Commission’s copy could not be read beyond section 10. The turnover tax instalments in the table above come from the Department’s own FAQ and apply to presumptive taxpayers. They are not the instalment regime that applies to a company.

The day of the month by which a VAT return must be filed is not stated. The only English translation available to us renders section 18 in a way that does not support a confident reading.

The monthly deadline for depositing Social Security Fund contributions is not stated. The Fund’s site publishes its schemes and its login portals; the deposit date is not on any page we could reach.

The deadline for appealing to the Revenue Tribunal is not stated. The Tribunal’s legal materials page returned nothing, and the Revenue Tribunal Act 2031 does not appear in the volume of the Law Commission’s collection that its own index points to.

None of these is genuinely obscure, and any Kathmandu accountant will supply all five in a sentence. Repeating them here without a citable instrument would give them a false solidity, and a filing calendar is exactly the kind of document a reader copies into a compliance system without checking.

Assessment

Nepali tax is self-assessed. A return filed is an assessment made, and the Department selects and examines rather than computing in the first instance. The exposure sits in the period afterwards, during which the Department may amend.

For FY 2083/84 the amended assessment window is reported to have been shortened from four years to three under section 101(3), and the window for applying for a refund extended from two years to five under section 113(4). A chartered accountancy firm describes both changes; neither is confirmed against the amending instrument. If accurate, they move Nepal in two directions at once: less time for the state to reopen a settled year, more time for a taxpayer to reclaim an overpayment.

The evidence base is tightening alongside. Electronic invoicing obligations under section 81 have been reinforced, with connection to the Department’s central billing monitoring system pressed on more taxpayers and a restructured penalty scale under section 119Ka, reported at NPR 500,000 for using software that deletes transaction data. An administration that cannot benchmark transfer prices for want of data is nonetheless building a real-time record of domestic sales.

Disputes

The route out of an assessment is administrative before it is judicial, and the first step costs money.

For VAT, section 31A requires an application for administrative review within 30 days of receiving the decision. A further 30 days is available if applied for within seven days of the first period expiring. The application must be accompanied by payment of the undisputed tax in full plus one third of the tax in dispute. The Department must decide within 60 days. Section 32 provides the onward route to the Revenue Tribunal, with a copy of the appeal registered with the Department within 15 days of filing.

The one-third deposit shapes behaviour more than anything else in the process. It turns a dispute into a financing decision. A taxpayer with a strong case and weak cash may settle an assessment it believes is wrong; a taxpayer with cash may litigate a marginal one. Nepal’s tax dispute statistics have to be read through that filter.

The Income Tax Act contains a parallel administrative review before the same Department, and appeals from both regimes go to the Revenue Tribunal, which sits at Pulchok in Lalitpur under a chairman who is a law member. We do not state the income tax deadlines or deposit here for the reason given above.

The annual amnesty

Sections 38 to 49 of the Finance Act 2083 remit interest, fees, additional charges and penalties across a long list of situations, most of them closing at the end of Poush 2083. Section 34 does the same for customs: where a post-clearance examination assessed duty by the end of Baisakh 2083, and the importer pays the assessed customs duty, excise and VAT by the end of Poush 2083, or withdraws a case pending before the Revenue Tribunal or a court, the penalty and all accrued interest are waived. Section 48 covers liabilities arising under the Companies Act 2063, which is a tacit acknowledgement of how many companies are behind on their filings.

A taxpayer carrying an old assessment should treat these windows as the cheapest exit available, and should also notice how reliably they recur.

Sources

1. आर्थिक विधेयक, २०८३ / आर्थिक ऐन, २०८३ (Finance Act 2083), full text as published

   Government of Nepal, published by the Nepal Law Commission · Published 19 Shrawan 2083 (4 August 2026); most provisions commence 1 Shrawan 2083 (17 July 2026) · Tier 1 — Primary legal instrument

   Supports: Section 1(2) commencement on 1 Shrawan 2083; sections 38 to 49 waiver and settlement windows; section 34 waiver of penalty and interest on post-clearance customs assessments where the assessed duty, excise and VAT are paid by the end of Poush 2083; section 48 waiver of tax, fees, charges, interest and fines arising under the Companies Act 2063.

   Accessed 26 August 2026

2. Value Added Tax Act, 2052 (1996), English translation as amended to 2011

   Government of Nepal (translation published via the Nepal Law Commission) · 1996, as amended; in force · Tier 1 — Primary legal instrument

   Supports: Section 10(1) and 10(2) registration timing; section 10A(3) cancellation of temporary registration within 7 days; section 19 interest of 10 percent a year on tax outstanding; section 24(5) refund within 30 days and 60 days; section 31A administrative review within 30 days, extension of 30 days, decision within 60 days and deposit of undisputed tax plus one third of the disputed amount.

   Accessed 26 August 2026

3. कम्पनी दर्ता पश्चातका कार्यहरू (Matters following company registration)

   Office of Company Registrar, Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies · Accessed 26 August 2026 · Tier 2 — Official publication

   Supports: Notification of sectoral approvals to the Registrar within 15 days; permanent account number before commencing operations; publication of memorandum and articles within three months of trading approval; annual general meeting within six months of the fiscal year end with a three-month extension available from the Registrar; filing of audited statements, directors' and auditor's reports and minutes within 30 days of the annual general meeting for public companies and within six months of the year end for private companies; fine under section 81(2) of the Companies Act 2063.

   Accessed 26 August 2026

4. Frequently asked questions

   Inland Revenue Department, Ministry of Finance · Accessed 26 August 2026 · Tier 2 — Official publication

   Supports: That turnover tax is paid in two instalments, by the end of Poush on turnover to 20 Poush and by the end of Ashadh on actual turnover to 20 Ashadh less the first instalment; and that a person with employment income from a single employer is generally not required to file a return.

   Accessed 26 August 2026

5. Changes in Income Tax Act 2058 of Nepal by Finance Bill 2083

   Shankar Associates, Chartered Accountants (author Shankar Thapa) · 14 June 2026 · Tier 6 — Professional or news source

   Supports: Reported shortening of the amended assessment window under section 101(3) from four years to three, extension of the refund application window under section 113(4) from two years to five, and reinforcement of electronic invoicing obligations under section 81 with restructured penalties under section 119Ka.

   Accessed 26 August 2026

6. Budget 2083 — Finance Bill 2083: Tax Concessions, Waivers and Settlement Windows

   Shankar Associates, Chartered Accountants (author Shankar Thapa) · 31 May 2026 · Tier 6 — Professional or news source

   Supports: That most of the settlement and waiver windows opened by the Finance Act 2083 close at the end of Poush 2083.

   Accessed 26 August 2026