When is the mandatory audit carried out? Duration of the audit. For 2021, the deadline for submitting the annual balance sheet to the Federal Tax Service is March 31, 2021. The auditor's report must be provided

What are mandatory audit criteria?

There is no unambiguous closed list of criteria in the audit legislation. All cases when a mandatory audit of financial statements for 2021 should be carried out were collected in the information of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation. This list includes the following main criteria for mandatory audit in 2021:

• conducting a certain type of activity,
• exceeding established income or asset limits,
• a certain organizational and legal form,
• belonging to a specific organization,
• presentation of consolidated statements.

Companies should conduct a mandatory audit, the criteria for which are given above, annually. The results of the audit are formalized in an audit report and are subject to entry into the Unified Federal Register of information on the facts of the activities of legal entities.

Who is subject to mandatory audit?

It is difficult to answer this question unambiguously, since subparagraph 6 of Article 5 of Federal Law No. 307-FZ states that the regulatory legal act contains an incomplete list of enterprises. That is, the need to conduct a mandatory audit may arise on the basis of other legal acts. Most often, this is prescribed in laws related to specific activities, so it is very important to monitor the emergence of new laws and regulations regarding specific LLC forms.

For example, the mandatory audit criteria do not directly refer to the fact that state and municipal unitary enterprises must undergo this procedure annually. This also includes non-profit organizations, gambling companies, and consumer credit cooperatives. Moreover, it does not matter at all whether they are small businesses.

To determine in which cases a mandatory audit is carried out, the following main groups of criteria can be distinguished:

Consequently, statutory audit criteria are clearly established for specific characteristics. Small enterprises may also be required to conduct an inspection in this form, but they will have to determine its necessity on their own by studying industry and other documents.

Statutory audit for 2021 - criteria

We list for which organizations at the end of 2021 it will be mandatory to have an audit report, based on the main criteria for a mandatory audit:

• for credit organizations, credit history bureaus, organizations that are professional participants in the securities market, insurance companies, mutual insurance companies, clearing organizations, trade organizers, gambling organizers, lottery operators, special depositories, non-state pension, joint-stock investment and other funds managing mutual fund or non-state pension fund companies, as well as organizations that have securities and others admitted to trading;
• for organizations whose revenue for 2021 exceeded 400 million rubles, or whose balance sheet assets as of December 31, 2016 amounted to more than 60 million rubles; these criteria for conducting a mandatory audit in 2021 do not apply to state unitary enterprises, municipal unitary enterprises, agricultural cooperatives and government agencies;
• absolutely for all joint-stock companies, as well as funds, state corporations, state-owned companies, federal state unitary enterprises, public law companies;
• for the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, the Deposit Insurance Agency, state corporations Rostec, Rosatom, JSC Russian Railways, the Credit Assistance Fund, etc., in this case, the criterion for mandatory audit is belonging to a specific organization;
• for organizations presenting or disclosing annual consolidated financial statements.

Such criteria for conducting a mandatory audit are provided for in Art. 5 of Law No. 307-FZ and other laws of the Russian Federation. For example, the law of December 1, 2007 No. 315-FZ obliges to conduct audits in self-regulatory organizations (clause 4 of Article 12 of Law No. 315-FZ), and according to the law of December 30, 2004 No. 214-FZ, the developer’s reporting is subject to a mandatory audit, clause 9. 4 tbsp. 18 of Law No. 315-FZ). Housing savings cooperatives, government, microfinance and other organizations are also subject to audit.

TIMELINES FOR CONDUCTING THE AUDIT BY OUR SPECIALISTS

The duration of the audit depends on the organizational and legal form of the company (JSC, PJSC, CJSC, LLC, fund, NPO, SRO, ...), the period being audited, the type of activity, the presence of foreign trade activities, the applied taxation system, the number of primary documents, accounting automation and other factors.

Based on practice, the minimum period for conducting a mandatory audit for one reporting year is 3-5 days.

Mandatory audit - 2021 criteria for LLC

The presence of an auditor's report as part of the annual reporting, especially for limited liability companies, is not stipulated by Law No. 315-FZ, but if the LLC falls under any of the criteria listed above, then an audit is mandatory for it.

Thus, in 2021, a mandatory audit is required for LLCs, the criteria of which are as follows:

• revenue in 2021 excluding VAT exceeds RUB 400 million, or
• balance sheet assets as of December 31, 2016 exceed 60 million rubles.

If such an LLC belongs to small businesses, this status does not exempt it from mandatory audit.

The LLC Law No. 14-FZ dated 02/08/1998 provides for an audit by decision of the general meeting of company participants, and a mandatory audit is required if this is established by other laws and regulations (Article 48 of Law No. 14-FZ).

According to the Federal Law “On Auditing” No. 307-FZ, mandatory audits are required to be carried out (main commercial organizations):

• Joint stock companies of all forms.
• 2. Limited liability companies with revenue over 400 million rubles per year or total assets (balance sheet total) over 60 million rubles as of December 31, 2016.

Fines from the tax service

On April 10, 2021, amendments to Article 15.11 of the Code of Administrative Offenses came into force, which provide for fines for gross violation of accounting and reporting rules, including for the lack of an audit report on the accounting (financial) statements (if the audit accounting (financial) reporting is mandatory).

The amount of fines provided for in the updated version of Article 15.11 of the Code of Administrative Offenses is:

• from 5 thousand rubles to 10 thousand rubles (for officials);
• in case of repeated violation - up to 20 thousand rubles (for officials) or disqualification of the official for a period of 1 to 2 years.

At the same time, the statute of limitations for bringing to administrative liability is 2 years from the date of commission of such an offense.

Who can initiate the imposition of such a fine?

Officials are authorized to draw up protocols on administrative offenses:

• tax authorities (subclause 5, clause 2, article 28.3 of the Administrative Code);
• executive authorities exercising control and supervision functions in the financial and budgetary sphere (clause 11, clause 2, article 28.3 of the Administrative Code);
• The Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation and the control and accounting bodies of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation (subclause 3, clause 5, article 28.3 of the Administrative Code).

Fines from ROSSTAT

For failure to provide an audit report to a set of financial statements submitted to Rosstat (in the case of a mandatory audit), the organization and its official may face an administrative fine (Article 19.7 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation):

• from 300 to 500 rubles (for officials);
• from 3 thousand to 5 thousand rubles (for legal entities).

At the same time, the imposition of a fine does not relieve the organization from the obligation to submit an audit report to the statistical authorities (clause 4 of article 4.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation).

Fines from the Bank of Russia (for JSCs)

Thus, disclosure of information not in full (accounting statements must be disclosed together with the auditor’s report), and (or) unreliable information, and (or) misleading information entails the imposition of an administrative fine:

• from 30 thousand rubles to 50 thousand rubles (for officials) or their disqualification for a period of 1 to 2 years;
• from 700 thousand rubles to 1 million rubles (for legal entities).

PS If you still doubt whether your organization needs an audit report or not, then when making a decision, take into account the sanctions provided by the tax service and the statistics body. The manager has the final say; he must be prepared for the consequences, including disqualification.

In what cases is an audit required?

The cases in which a company must undergo an audit without fail are stated in the Federal Law of December 30, 2008 No. 307-FZ “On Auditing Activities”.

According to this law, the following are subject to mandatory audit, in particular:

• joint stock companies;
• companies that received revenue in the previous year (line 2110 of the Statement of Financial Results) in excess of 400,000,000 rubles (excluding VAT, excise taxes and export duties);
• companies whose balance sheet assets at the end of the previous year exceed 60,000,000 rubles;
• banks, insurance companies and associations of insurers, stock exchanges.

A mandatory audit is carried out if at least one of the listed grounds is met.

A mandatory audit for 2021 will need to be carried out if revenue for the previous year exceeds 600 million rubles, and the value of assets at the end of the year before the reporting year is 200 million rubles. These figures for the report for 2021 and beyond are even higher: 800 million rubles. and 400 million rubles.

According to Federal Law No. 99-FZ of May 5, 2014, all joint stock companies, both public and non-public, are subject to mandatory audit.

The audit is carried out after the annual reporting is completed, but before it is submitted to the tax office. In joint stock companies, the audit must take place before the financial statements are approved by the general meeting of shareholders.

In practice, verification begins already in the process of reporting by the accounting department, on the basis of “working” options, which, of course, do not have legal force, but to some extent give an idea of ​​​​the state of affairs in the organization, show the state of accounting registers, and allow us to identify specific or dangerous deals. This often helps to make significant adjustments to the statements. The Russian Ministry of Finance considers this approach to verification to be legitimate (letter dated January 29, 2014 No. 07-04-18/01).

If the audit process ends simultaneously with the signing of the statements, the date of the audit report and the date of preparation of the accounting (financial) statements will coincide. Let us recall that the date of preparation of financial statements is the date of their signing by the head of the organization (clause 8 of article 13 of Law No. 402-FZ).

note

According to the Federal Law “On Accounting”, the auditor’s report is not a form of accounting (financial) reporting of the company. That is, it does not need to be submitted to the tax office as part of the reporting.

It is mandatory for a company to submit an audit report only to the territorial office of Rosstat if it is subject to a mandatory audit. In this case, the audit report must be submitted either along with the reporting, or no later than 10 working days from the day following the date of the audit report, but no later than December 31 of the year following the reporting year (Part 2 of Article 18 of Law No. 402-FZ) . Therefore, if your company is subject to a mandatory audit, then for reporting for 2021 it must be submitted no later than December 31, 2021.

note

The audited entity is obliged to enter information about the results of the mandatory audit into the Unified Federal Register of Information on the Facts of the Activities of Legal Entities (Part 6, Article 5 of the Federal Law “On Auditing Activities” as amended by Federal Law No. 360-FZ of July 3, 2016). The exception is cases when such information constitutes a state or commercial secret, as well as other cases established by federal laws.

The following information is entered into the register:

• INN, OGRN, SNILS (if available) of the person being checked;
• TIN, OGRN, SNILS (if any) of the auditor (organization or individual auditor);
• a list of accounting (financial) statements in respect of which a mandatory audit was carried out, the period for which these statements were compiled;
• date of the auditor's report on the accounting (financial) statements of the audited entity;
• the auditor's opinion on the reliability of the accounting (financial) statements of the entity being audited, indicating the circumstances that have or may have a significant impact on the reliability of the statements.

For whom is the 2020 audit required?

To determine organizations subject to mandatory audit of financial statements, let us turn to Article 5 of Law No. 307-FZ. In accordance with the provisions of Part 1 of this article, the procedure is inevitable with the following characteristics of a business entity:

• the organization is a joint-stock company (OJSC, CJSC);
• availability of securities admission to organized trading;
• the organization operates in the field of clearing, lending, insurance (including mutual insurance companies), is a joint-stock investment fund or its management company, a non-state PF or its management company, another fund or its management company, as well as a credit history bureau or trade organizer.

In this area, in addition to the basic law, there are also documents and rules approved by government regulations and orders of the Ministry of Finance, therefore, in some cases, an audit may be considered mandatory in relation to enterprises/organizations not specified in No. 307-FZ.

This is true, in particular, in relation to entities whose tax policy is considered high-risk - for example, in the absence of information about the location of the company or in its cooperation with one-day companies, it involves involvement (order of the Federal Tax Service of the Russian Federation dated May 30, 2007).

The list of entities subject to audit is published on the official website of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation and is updated annually. As recently as 2021, two new cases were added to the list, namely:

• Russian Post (acquired the status of a joint stock company on 10/01/2019);
• an association of tour operators providing services in the field of outbound tourism.

Conducting an audit for an LLC

This year, the procedure is required for all business entities, regardless of the form of ownership, including limited liability companies, if at least one of the following conditions is met at the end of 2021:

• revenue volume - from 400 million rubles;
• the amount of assets on the balance sheet - from 60 million rubles;
• disclosure and/or presentation of annual consolidated accounting and financial statements.

Procedure changes in 2021

In accordance with the order of the Federal Tax Service No. ММВ-7-1/ [email protected], this year audit reports are accepted by the tax inspectorate (formerly the powers of Rosstat). Another feature is electronic filing, although small businesses still have the option to report “on paper” (at their own discretion).