“Wait, who's coming!”: 8 comments on checks

Tax inspectorate, SES, firefighters, Rospotrebnadzor - how many of these sounds have merged for the heart of a businessman ... Vladimir Fokin, Managing Partner of Fokin and partners ".

Initiative is punishable

All inspections that a trading company meets with occur no more often than once every three years, and Rospotrebnadzor can only check a company at the request of the buyer. The inspection of the organization by the firefighters and the SES should be listed in the plan, and the "unscheduled" inspection carried out on the initiative of the inspectors is illegal. The plan of inspections is published either on the website of the local administration, or on the website of the prosecutor's office, since it is the body supervising these instances. The tax inspectorate does not publish its plans anywhere, but in fact it comes about once every three years. The tax office has the right to check documents with a limitation period of no more than three years, so the inspectors try not to miss this three-year period.

A tax audit can last from two months to a year or even up to 15 months. If a lot of taxpayers with a large turnover are attributed to the inspection, it may not have time to check the smaller and completely small companies assigned to it. So it sometimes does not reach some firms.

Formal process

Inspectors do not warn. They just come in, hand over the decision to conduct the audit and get down to business. The decision should indicate who, what, when checking, the time period for conducting the inspection must also be stated and the seal of the authority must be affixed. If the decree says that there are two inspectors, and there are five of them, the excess can be safely sent out the door. All inspectors must have certificates from which data can and should be rewritten, including the outgoing document number. Since it is impossible to exclude a fake certificate, it is better to contact the issuing authority by phone and make sure that the employee really works in this inspection.

It is very important to formalize communication with all reviewers. Requests for any documents from the tax office must be in writing, and the responses must be marked that the documents are transferred. Before sending documents, you should make an inventory of them. In severe cases, when the inspector does not take the documents, they can be sent by registered mail.

Punishment is inevitable

Understand one simple thing: the inspector comes to punish - to charge additional taxes, write out a fine, put a tick. Moreover, the bonus and salary of all inspectors does not depend on the law-abidingness of the audited taxpayers, but on the amount of the act or on the number of violations identified.

If the inspector from the fire inspectorate or the SES has nothing to complain about, he will leave, pretending that there was no verification. But this is rather an exception, and often there is always at least something, because the system is initially designed so that it is very difficult to follow all the rules. As for the tax, its verification a priori means a fine. And if possible, it is advisable to have a financial pillow to cover losses from accruals, because when you are under check, the bank will not give out a loan.

Distracting maneuver

Knowing that the tax office always finds something, experienced accountants in the course of their work deliberately commit minor violations, the cost of which is not high. For example, such a "bone for an inspector" can be a reflection of the cost of water in an office cooler or other "non-production", but insignificant costs. Perhaps, having found these violations, the inspector will not want to "dig" deeper.

Tough stance

Worshiping before inspectors is gradually going out of fashion, because businessmen began to understand: you made an agreement with one inspector, and the superior will stop this agreement. In addition, it becomes clear that if your legal position can be substantiated in court, you basically do not need to agree on anything. Therefore, a formal approach is now becoming more and more widespread: “There is a process established by law. Until we receive a written request, we will not give anything to anyone. And we will not allow to jump around the enterprise. And they just don’t agree to chat ”. This approach works every year more and more effectively, since sometimes the auditors themselves do not want to study or do not know the norms of the verification process. And judicial practice has developed in such a way that if this process is not carried out by the inspector in accordance with all the rules, the court will certainly win the taxpayer.

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DIY diversion

Unfortunately, employees of many companies are not familiar with the norms of the verification process, and inspectors take advantage of this. For example, they call the accountant and ask for some documents. And the accountant, without saying anything to anyone, rushes into the tax office with a folder under his armpit. Who sent him there? Why does he carry documents without a formal request and inventory? Behaves as a saboteur in his own company. It is important to remember: the taxpayer has the right not to give anything without an official request. In general, he can do everything that is not forbidden and for which there is no punishment, even if the inspectors really want to,

In no case should you put the inspector nearby or in the accounting department itself. In any case, accountants communicate by phone or with employees, and knowing some information, the inspector understands where to look for everything else.

It’s naive to think that if you “behave well” with the inspector, you will not get anything done. On the contrary, the more you show him and tell him out of the kindness of your heart — without official requests — the greater the fine you risk getting. After all, this is how you voluntarily hand over information that the reviewer, perhaps, would not have found without your prompting.

Tell me who is your partner

You should know a simple technique that tax inspectors often use when checking trading companies. They take documents on expenditure transactions, most often the largest, and check the suppliers of the company. And if one of the suppliers has signs of a fly-by-night firm, the taxpayer will definitely face questions about this partner and may even be suspected of money laundering. The only legal and cheap way to protect yourself from such a situation is to collect a full set of notarized documents for the supplier. This should be the charter, an extract from the register, an order for the appointment of a director, a certificate of registration. So, for example, one large trading company secured itself. But in addition to the package of statutory documents, she also regularly requested a balance sheet from her supplier with the mark of the tax office. And when one day the supplier did not send the next balance, the company broke off the contract, and, as it turned out, it was not in vain: the supplier was convicted of money laundering, and thanks to this precaution, no questions arose to the company.

Spherical IP in vacuum

Experienced businessmen understand that legislation changes too quickly and do not take any important steps without a lawyer - the price of a mistake is too high. On the other hand, individual entrepreneurs often feel like they are in a vacuum, thinking that if they work according to all the rules, fines and tax deductions will not affect them. They think like this: "Why would I pay for the consultation, because nothing has happened to me yet?" But it will not be superfluous for any individual entrepreneur to thoroughly consult with a lawyer at least once in order to develop a scheme of work and calculate all the risks for the future, and then, every two or three years, check whether anything has changed in the worked out scheme. After all, if the inspectorate charges an entrepreneur due to non-compliance with some rules in the amount of 20 million rubles with a trade turnover of an individual entrepreneur of 60 million, this in many cases threatens the death of the business.

Incorrect registration of costs and incorrect registration of partnerships are frequent problems of individual entrepreneurs, for which they then receive fines from the tax authorities. For example, individual entrepreneurs sometimes merge into micro-holdings with separate stores, but a common warehouse, and forget to keep separate records. For such a violation, the tax inspectorate may charge additional taxes not on profits, but on proceeds, and to everyone. And this is a completely different amount. Also, the tax service loves to identify systemic errors, for example, incorrect execution of a certain large transaction. It is easier for an inspector to find fault with ten contracts, which can make up 80% of an entrepreneur's revenue, than looking for minor flaws in other documents.

Common mistakes can also be attributed to "incorrect mathematics" when calculating retail space by entrepreneurs who pay taxes under a special regime - UTII. The first thing the tax authorities do is check the retail space. In order not to be mistaken, an entrepreneur should know the judicial practice on this issue, and it is different in different regions. If the retail space is in fact more than allowed by the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, then the entrepreneur is in trouble: the tax authority will charge him additional taxes according to the general system: profit tax, VAT and property tax, etc.

It should be noted that just being “literate” is not enough. The Tax Code does not provide an answer to many of the situations faced by an entrepreneur in the trading industry. A lot of answers “how it is possible, but how it is impossible” contains judicial practice, therefore it is necessary to closely monitor it.