Chartered Accountant · ICAI M.No. 153926 · FRN 136869W · Reviewed on 12 October 2026
Life without 12AB, in money terms
Registration is the gateway condition to the exemption chapter: unregistered, the trust’s receipts over expenses are taxable — typically at the rates applicable to an AOP, and in several configurations at the maximum marginal rate. Corpus donations, which a registered trust shelters as capital, are treated as plain receipts. For the audit-and-accumulation machinery that registered trusts live by — the audit reference is section 12A(1)(b) read with Rule 17B, registration itself under section 12AB — none of it is available to shelter anything.
The donor side and the fund-raising cost
No 12AB almost always means no 80G approval either — institutional donors and CSR committees filter on both before the first rupee. Anonymous donations (no name-and-address record) above the threshold are taxed at 30% under 115BBC even for registered trusts; unregistered, the entire hat-collection model is a tax problem. Registration is therefore a fundraising document as much as a tax one.
Getting registered — and staying registered
New trusts take provisional registration (Form 10A) and convert to regular (Form 10AB) within the prescribed window after activities begin; registrations now run in renewable blocks, so diary the renewal. Mind the exit rules too: section 115TD taxes a trust’s accreted income when it converts, merges with a non-eligible entity or fails to re-register — the regime punishes drifting out far more than never entering. Our trust practice handles 10A/10AB filings and the first year’s compliance calendar together.