Registration with the sub-registrar is effectively a way to safe keep your trust deed with the government. The registrar will issue a certified copy of the deed to you that you can use for your day-to-day purposes. If your copy gets lost or destroyed –you can go to the registrar’s office and get another certified copy made. BUT the real registration of a public charitable trust takes place at the Income Tax Department when you apply for tax exemptions under sections 12A and 80G. Here is how it goes: Prepare your trust deed. I strongly recommend that your take services of a good lawyer for this purpose. Then get the trust deed printed on a Rs. 100 stamp paper (i.e. the first page of the deed will be printed on the stamp paper and rest of the pages will be stapled with it.) Execute the trust deed by signing on all the pages. All the trustees will sign on all the pages. Now, obtain form 10A and 10G from the Income Tax Department. You can download these forms from their website as well. Form 10A is for exemption under section 12A and form 10G is for exemption under section 80G. Duly fill these forms and submit these forms along with trust deed to the relevant official in the Income Tax Department’s exemptions office. Within 2-3 months, you’ll receive a clarification notice from the department. You should reply to all the questions and clarifications that the department asks for. Supply relevant documents if they ask for it. Once the tax department is satisfied –you’ll issued the Exemption Certificates. SEE ALSO: Different between Trust and Foundation The above said certificates shall bear a registration number which you can quote as the registration number your trust. Same process for 80G and 12A applies for NGOs registered as Societies. Certificate for exemption under 12A bears the lifetime validity whereas the 80G certificate is valid only up to a period of 1 to 3 years. My readers have contributed a lot of questions on the subject of trust registration in India. I have answered many of these questions in the comments section given below. Please go through all the comments —you may find more clarity on several topics. Also, please do read all my articles on how to register a trust and the process of society registration. You can also read about how trust and society are different from each other. All these articles are properly interlinked. After carefully reading all the relevant material given on this website, if you still have a question —please ask by making a comment. Please write proper English language and give as much details in your question as possible. This enables me and other readers to better understand your question. Please keep your questions only about the registration process. I can not, for example, tell you how to get government grants and donations. So, please do not ask such questions. I hope you found this information useful. In case you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I will try my best to help you. Thank you for using TechWelkin!
