For what, under what conditions and how can an accountant be punished?

Let's designate those responsible

Before determining the amount of penalties and listing the reasons for penalties, it is necessary to understand who inspectors can punish and for what.

There is no avoiding confusion on the issue of officials. Who should be punished for what? Of course, if the company does not have a chief accountant, then there is no reason for disputes. The only official who will be fined is the director. But what if the company has a chief accountant? How then should penalties be distributed?

In fact, the manager is responsible for organizing accounting at the enterprise. The director appoints a chief accountant to the position, determines his range of responsibilities, and, if necessary, hires additional employees in the accounting department.

And the chief accountant himself is already responsible for accounting: the chief accountant is responsible for drawing up accounting policies, the completeness and timeliness of recording accounting transactions, the accuracy and reliability of reporting.

Depending on the category of misconduct, sanctions will be applied to a specific official. But documenting responsibilities and authorities plays an important role.

The law is good, but there is a nuance

And now a little about the procedure for imposing a fine and the sad things.

Protocol on offense under Art. 15.11 Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation is compiled by tax authorities. But the court imposes an administrative fine on the chief accountant. It is to him that all your arguments in self-defense will ultimately come to him for consideration. Get ready.

In practice, controllers most often apply this article to one of the six violations listed in the note to paragraph 1. Namely, to understatement of taxes and fees. Errors in accounting and accounting are less of a concern to them. And here it’s time to remember one famous expression: we wanted the best, but it turned out as always. Let's look carefully at the new clause 1.1:

“The administrative liability provided for by this article for distortion of accounting (financial) reporting indicators does not apply to the person entrusted with accounting, and the person with whom an agreement has been concluded for the provision of accounting services, if such a distortion was made as a result of inconsistency of primary accounting documents compiled by other persons with accomplished facts of economic life and (or) non-transfer or untimely transfer of primary accounting documents for registration of the data contained in them in accounting registers.”

Where is the mention of understatement of taxes? Does this mean that the innovation making life easier for accountants applies only to distortion of financial statements, and does not apply to the other five offenses from the list of gross violations? We do not have an answer to this question. Knowing the tax authorities, we risk assuming that they can take advantage of this clue. Therefore, everything will depend on which path the judicial practice will take: whether judges will interpret clause 1.1 to cover the entire art. 15.11 or take a formal approach. We hope they choose the first option.

Organizational violations in accounting

In relation to a legal entity, several types of offenses are identified for which administrative liability is provided:

1. Fine for violation of accounting 2021. The penalty will be applied to an organization that, in one calendar year, has repeatedly violated the established rules for accounting: untimely or incorrectly reflected transactions in accounting accounts, or did not create and store primary and accounting documents. Moreover, the punishment is detailed in Article 120 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation by category:
   if the offenses were committed during one tax period, the company will be fined 10,000 rubles;
2. errors and violations were discovered in two or more tax periods - a fine of 30,000 rubles;
3. violations led to an understatement of the tax base (they paid less taxes and contributions to the budget than they should have) - the fine will be equal to 20% of the amount of underpayment, but not more than 40,000 rubles.
4. Fine for failure to submit financial statements to the Federal Tax Service on time. In accordance with paragraph 1 of Art. 126 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, the company will be fined 200 rubles for each type of reporting not submitted to the Federal Tax Service. Moreover, punishment is applied not only to reports that were not submitted at all. For failure to meet the deadline for the reporting campaign—by March 31 of the year following the reporting year—similar sanctions are provided.
5. Fine for failure to submit financial statements to Rosstat. Inspectors may limit themselves to a warning if the delay is short or there are valid reasons for failure to submit accounting reports to statistics. Also, representatives of Rosstat have the right to impose an administrative fine in the amount of 3,000 to 5,000 rubles on a company that submitted reports late. The standard is enshrined in Article 19.7 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation.

Violation of tax rules

An entrepreneur must pay taxes on time and in full. Payment deadlines for different taxation systems are also indicated in our calendar. The fine for non-payment of taxes by individual entrepreneurs under Article 122 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation is 20% of the amount of unpaid tax.

In addition, an entrepreneur, if he has employees, becomes a tax agent, and therefore must withhold personal income tax from their income and transfer it to the budget. For violation of the deadlines for transferring this tax, a fine is imposed on the individual entrepreneur according to the same rules, i.e. 20% of the amount not transferred.

Violations by officials

The categories of offenses for which the company will be punished have been sorted out. Now let us outline the offenses for which penalties are provided for against officials.

All punishments can be divided into three categories:

• gross violation of accounting rules - we will consider separately;
• violation of deadlines or failure to submit accounting reports to the Federal Tax Service;
• failure to provide or untimely provision of accounting reports to Rosstat.

For failure to submit a balance sheet and its annexes, the responsible employee, for example the chief accountant, has the right to be fined in the amount of 300 to 500 rubles. Moreover, the standard for applying sanctions is different, despite the same size of the fine. For an outstanding balance, the Federal Tax Service applies the norms of Art. 15.6 Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation. In Rosstat - article 19.7 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation. Moreover, the imposition of penalties does not relieve the responsible employee from the obligation to submit financial statements.

IMPORTANT!

The official whose duties include reporting to the Federal Tax Service and Rosstat will be fined. For example, for the chief accountant - if such responsibilities are specified in his job description. If the assignment of duties is not documented, a fine will be collected from the manager.

Controllers, before exacting liability for violations of accounting from an official, will request copies of documents. For example, the Federal Tax Service requires you to send a copy of the passport of the responsible employee, as well as attach a copy of the order of appointment to the position and job descriptions.

Distribution of responsibilities within the company

Often, company management wants to assign the maximum amount of responsibilities to the accountant. However, when deciding on the distribution of responsibilities, we suggest paying attention, in particular, to the following:

• as a general rule, the head of the organization is obliged to entrust the maintenance of accounting to the chief accountant (part 3 of article 7 of the Federal Law of December 6, 2011 No. 402-FZ “On Accounting”);
• In small organizations, the responsibilities of an accountant include not only accounting, but also the formation of accounting policies, reporting, and drawing up personnel documents. However, all these responsibilities can be assigned to an accountant only by an employment contract. A separate order or instruction is not suitable for this.
• the employer does not have the right to unilaterally change the terms of the employment contract (for example, add new responsibilities to it);
• In the general case, it is not the accountant, but the manager who is responsible for organizing the storage of accounting documentation (Part 1, Article 7, Part 3, Article 29 of Law No. 402-FZ).

Gross irregularities in accounting

Only those who do not work cannot make mistakes in their work. In the activities of others, errors and omissions are common. But gross mistakes can be seriously punished. So what is considered a gross violation of accounting rules?

An exhaustive list of punishable acts is enshrined in Article 15.11 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation. A gross violation of accounting requirements is:

• understatement of taxes, contributions and fees by 10% or more, due to distortion of accounting indicators;
• distortion of financial statements (a violation is determined for monetary indicators, the value of which deviates from the fact by 10% or more);
• registration of an imaginary or non-existent operation or object in accounting;
• maintaining accounting accounts outside the established accounting journals and registers;
• preparation and compilation of accounting reports based on data not confirmed by registers and accounting journals;
• lack of primary and accounting documentation within the prescribed periods of safekeeping.

These gross violations will result in a fine. Moreover, the size of the sanction depends on whether the offense was committed for the first time or whether the punishment is imposed again. For example, for a gross violation of accounting committed for the first time, a penalty of 5,000 to 10,000 rubles is provided. Repeated offenses will be punished more seriously - from 10,000 to 20,000 rubles. Or the official may be disqualified for a period of one to two years.

Responsibility for failure to maintain accounting records

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The unified legal and methodological basis for organizing and maintaining accounting records in the Russian Federation is established by Federal Law No. 129-FZ of November 21, 1996 “On Accounting” (hereinafter referred to as Federal Law No. 129-FZ), which applies to all organizations located on the territory of the Russian Federation. Federation, as well as branches and representative offices of foreign organizations, unless otherwise provided by international treaties of the Russian Federation.

According to Art. 1 of Federal Law N 129-FZ, the objects of accounting are the property of organizations, their obligations and business transactions carried out by organizations in the course of their activities.

The main objectives of accounting are:

— generation of complete and reliable information about the organization’s activities and its property status, necessary for internal users of financial statements (managers, founders, participants and owners of the organization’s property), as well as external (investors, creditors) and other users of financial statements;

— providing information necessary for internal and external users of financial statements to monitor compliance with the legislation of the Russian Federation when the organization carries out business operations and their feasibility, the availability and movement of property and liabilities, the use of material, labor and financial resources in accordance with approved norms, regulations and estimates;

— preventing negative results from the organization’s economic activities and identifying internal reserves to ensure its financial stability.

The purpose of accounting is to compile and present comparable and reliable information about the property status of organizations and their income and expenses, necessary for users of financial statements.

Accounting according to Art. 8 of Federal Law N 129-FZ must be maintained by the organization continuously from the moment of its registration as a legal entity until reorganization or liquidation in the manner established by the legislation of the Russian Federation. At the same time, accounting of property, liabilities and business transactions is maintained in the currency of the Russian Federation (in rubles) by double entry on interconnected accounting accounts included in the working chart of accounts.

All business operations carried out by the organization in accordance with Art. 9 of Federal Law N 129-FZ, must be documented with supporting documents. They serve as primary accounting documents on the basis of which accounting is conducted. The primary accounting document is drawn up at the time of the transaction (on paper and computer media), and if this is not possible, immediately after its completion. It should be remembered that primary accounting documents are accepted for accounting if they are drawn up in the form contained in the albums of unified forms of primary accounting documentation, and documents whose form is not provided for in these albums must contain the details directly listed in paragraph 2 of Art. 9 of Federal Law N 129-FZ.

To systematize and accumulate information contained in primary documents accepted for accounting, accounting registers are intended (Article 10 of Federal Law N 129-FZ), which are maintained in special books (magazines), on separate sheets and cards, in the form of machine diagrams received when using computer technology, as well as on magnetic tapes, disks, floppy disks and other machine media. Business transactions in accounting registers must be reflected in chronological order and grouped according to the appropriate accounting accounts.

Based on Art. 13 of Federal Law N 129-FZ, organizations are required to prepare financial statements, which consist of:

— balance sheet;

— profit and loss statement;

— appendices to them, provided for by regulations;

— an audit report or a conclusion of the audit union of agricultural cooperatives confirming the reliability of the organization’s financial statements, if in accordance with federal laws it is subject to mandatory audit or mandatory revision;

- explanatory note.

Also, organizations, according to paragraph 1 of Art. 17 of Federal Law N 129-FZ are required to store primary accounting documents, accounting registers and financial statements for periods established in accordance with the rules for organizing state archival affairs, but not less than five years.

Responsibility for organizing accounting in the organization, compliance with the law when carrying out business transactions, as well as responsibility for organizing the storage of accounting documents, accounting registers and financial statements lies with the head of the organization (Article 6, paragraph 3 of Article 17 of Federal Law N 129-FZ ).

In this case, the head of the organization can, depending on the volume of accounting work:

— establish an accounting service as a structural unit headed by a chief accountant;

— add an accountant position to the staff;

— transfer on a contractual basis the maintenance of accounting to a centralized accounting department, a specialized organization or a specialist accountant;

- maintain accounting records personally.

As a rule, the head of an organization forms an accounting service in the form of a structural unit headed by a chief accountant, therefore the chief accountant is responsible for the formation of accounting policies, accounting, and timely submission of complete and reliable financial statements (see Article 7 of Federal Law N 129-FZ ).

If an organization evades accounting in the manner established by the legislation of the Russian Federation and regulations of the bodies regulating accounting, then in accordance with Art. 18 of Federal Law N 129-FZ, both the chief accountant and the head of the organization are held administratively or criminally liable in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation.

Administrative liability for violation of legislation in the field of taxes and fees is provided for in Ch. 15 “Administrative offenses in the field of finance, taxes and fees, insurance, securities market” of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses (CAO RF).

According to Art. 15.11 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, gross violation of the rules of accounting and presentation of financial statements, as well as the procedure and terms for storing accounting documents, entails the imposition of an administrative fine on officials in the amount of 2,000 to 3,000 rubles. In this case, a gross violation of the rules of accounting and presentation of financial statements means:

— distortion of the amounts of accrued taxes and fees by at least 10%;

— distortion of any article (line) of the financial statements form by at least 10%.

By virtue of clause 24 of the Resolution of the Plenum of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation dated October 24, 2006 N 18 “On some issues that arise for the courts when applying the Special Part of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offences”, when deciding on the issue of bringing an official of an organization to administrative liability, it is necessary to be guided by the provisions of clause. 1 tbsp. 6, paragraph 2 art. 7 of Federal Law N 129-FZ, according to which the manager is responsible for the proper organization of accounting, and the chief accountant (accountant - in the absence of a chief accountant position on staff) - for maintaining accounting records, timely submission of complete and reliable financial statements. Similar explanations are given in Letter of the Ministry of Finance of Russia dated October 23, 2008 N 03-02-08/20.

In the event of failure to submit documents and (or) other information necessary for tax control to the tax authorities, customs authorities and bodies of the state extra-budgetary fund within the established procedure, and (or) other information necessary for the implementation of tax control, as well as in the case of submission of such information in incomplete or distorted form in accordance with paragraph 1 of Art. 15.6 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, a fine in the amount of 300 to 500 rubles is collected from officials.

At the same time, attention should be paid to the fact that a person is subject to liability only for those administrative offenses for which his guilt has been established. This is stated, for example, in the Resolution of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the East Siberian District dated March 19, 2009 N A19-11265/08-28-F02-923/09 in case N A19-11265/08-28, in which the court refers to paragraph 1 Art. 1.5 Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation.

Thus, an official cannot be punished for evading accounting unless his guilt is proven.

Officials are brought to criminal liability on the basis of Art. 199 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), but provided that these persons committed evasion of taxes and fees on a large or especially large scale.

Moreover, evasion of taxes and (or) fees from an organization by failure to submit a tax return or other documents, the submission of which in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation on taxes and fees is mandatory, or by including in a tax return or such documents knowingly false information, committed in on a large scale, shall be punished alternatively:

- a fine in the amount of 100 thousand to 300 thousand rubles. or in the amount of wages or other income of the convicted person for a period of one to two years;

— arrest for a period of 4 to 6 months;

- imprisonment for a term of up to two years with or without deprivation of the right to hold certain positions or engage in certain activities for a term of up to three years.

If the same act is committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy (for example, a conspiracy of the chief accountant with other accounting employees or with the head of an organization) on an especially large scale, then the following is also punishable alternatively:

- a fine in the amount of 200 thousand to 500 thousand rubles. or in the amount of wages or other income of the convicted person for a period of one to three years;

- imprisonment for a term of up to six years with or without deprivation of the right to hold certain positions or engage in certain activities for a term of up to three years.

Mandatory features of a simple and qualified crime are a large or especially large amount of unpaid taxes and (or) fees, determined in accordance with the notes to this article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

Federal Law dated December 29, 2009 N 383-FZ “On Amendments to Part One of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation and Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation” implements amendments to the article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation under consideration; they relate to an increase in the amount of unpaid taxes and fees, entailing criminal liability of taxpayers.

Thus, a large amount is now recognized as the amount of taxes and (or) fees amounting to more than 2 million rubles for a period within three financial years in a row, provided that the share of unpaid taxes and (or) fees exceeds 10% of the amounts of taxes and (or) fees payable ( or) fees, or exceeding 6 million rubles. A particularly large amount is recognized as an amount amounting to more than 10 million rubles for a period within three financial years in a row, provided that the share of unpaid taxes and (or) fees exceeds 20% of the amounts of taxes and (or) fees payable, or exceeds 30 million rub.

Evasion of taxes and (or) fees should be understood as deliberate acts of officials aimed at non-payment of large or especially large amounts and resulting in complete or partial non-receipt of the corresponding taxes and fees into the budget system of the Russian Federation.

Methods of evading taxes and (or) fees can be either actions in the form of deliberate inclusion in a tax return or other documents, the submission of which in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation on taxes and fees is mandatory, knowingly false information, or inaction, expressed in intentional failure to submit a tax return or other specified documents.

Based on the fact that, in accordance with the provisions of tax legislation, the deadline for submitting a tax return and the deadline for paying taxes (fees) may not coincide, the moment of completion of the crime should be considered the actual failure to pay taxes (fees) within the period established by tax legislation.

Note! Organizations also bear tax liability for failure to maintain accounting records.

Thus, if an organization fails to submit financial statements to the tax authority in accordance with paragraphs. 5 p. 1 art. 23 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation (TC RF), the measure of liability established by clause 1 of Art. 126 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation. This is indicated by the Ministry of Finance of Russia in Letter dated October 29, 2008 N 03-02-07/1-436. According to paragraph 1 of Art. 126 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, failure by an organization (taxpayer) to submit documents and (or) other information provided for by the Tax Code of the Russian Federation and other acts of legislation on taxes and fees to the tax authorities within the prescribed period shall entail a fine of 50 rubles. for each document not submitted.

In addition, for a gross violation by an organization of the rules for accounting for income and (or) expenses and (or) objects of taxation, Art. 120 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation provides for the collection of a fine in the amount of:

- 5,000 rubles if these acts were committed during one tax period;

- 15,000 rubles, if these offenses were committed during more than one tax period;

- in the amount of 10% of the amount of unpaid tax, but not less than 15,000 rubles, if previously presented violations resulted in an understatement of the tax base.

A gross violation of the rules for accounting for income and expenses and objects of taxation means the absence of primary documents or the absence of invoices or accounting registers; systematic (twice or more times during a calendar year) untimely or incorrect reflection in the accounting accounts and reporting of business transactions, cash, tangible assets, intangible assets and financial investments of the organization.

Simplified methods of accounting: pros and cons

Valuation of inventories in the new accounting standard “Inventories”

Accounting Recommendations

Simplified accounting

Bringing to administrative liability for violation of accounting and reporting requirements

How to avoid penalties for accounting violations

The chief accountant and director can avoid fines from inspectors. To do this, you need to document that:

• a corrective declaration, calculation or other reporting has been provided;
• the amount of tax, fee and contribution not paid due to distortion of accounting data is fully repaid to the budget;
• penalties for late payments due to violations and distortions in accounting have been fully paid;
• the accounting error was corrected in the prescribed manner before the accounting was approved, including the preparation of revised financial statements.

Explanations regarding how administrative responsibility for violation of accounting rules is determined were given by the Ministry of Finance in a separate Information Notice dated 04/07/2016 No. IS-accounting-3.