Spice+-New MCA form for company registration in India

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has launched a web-based system for registration of companies in India with the launch of the Spice Plus form (SPICe+) with effect from February 23, 2020. This move is aimed to further the ease of doing business in India and proposes to revolutionize the way the companies are registered in India. MCA in this regard published a notification on February 06, 2020 and published the new rules i.e. ‘Companies (Incorporation) Amendment Rules, 2020’ (Rules). Now all new name reservations for new companies as well incorporations shall now be applied through SPICe+ only. The SPICe+ form shall be divided into two parts i.e. Part A – for name approval application and Part B – other incorporation services.

Along with the facility of incorporation, SPICe+ offers multiple services which are name reservation, incorporation, DIN allotment, mandatory issue of PAN, TAN, EPFO, ESIC, Profession Tax (Maharashtra) and opening of bank account. It will also facilitate allotment of GSTIN wherever so applied for by the stakeholders. The change of name facility will still be required to be carried out on RUN forms.

The AGILE form which was previously only used for GST and was separate form has now been replaced with AGILE-PRO form. Now a company can apply for GSTIN/EPFO/ESIC/opening of bank account at the time of filing the SPICe+ form itself.

The new SPICe+ form provides more services in a single form than the previous SPICe form by providing ESIC, EPFO registration and bank account opening. These facilities were either dormant or not present in the erstwhile SPICe forms. However, a point to be noted is that new companies are not bound to utilize the services for registration under EPF and ESIC under the new SPICe+ form.

The MCA and other relevant bodies in terms of ease of doing business want to provide newly incorporated companies with all registrations (apart from company incorporation) within 5-7 days. The Final outcome and success of the form will depend on the delivery of the MCA in sticking the to the aforesaid time period.