Penalties for failure to conduct a mandatory audit. Penalties for failure to conduct a statutory audit Other cases of statutory audit established by federal laws

In order to obtain a qualified independent opinion on the reliability of its accounting (financial) statements, an organization may involve a specialized audit organization or an individual auditor in checking these statements. But in some cases, conducting an annual audit is an obligation, not a right of an organization. We will tell you about the criteria for a mandatory audit in 2019 in our consultation.

General criteria for statutory audit 2018

The main criteria and subjects of mandatory audit are provided for by the Federal Law of December 30, 2008 No. 307-FZ. In general, the organization is required to conduct an annual audit financial statements for 2018, if it satisfies any of the conditions specified in Part 1 of Art. 5 of the Federal Law of December 30, 2008 No. 307-FZ.

Thus, the criteria for a mandatory audit are:

  • the organization has the organizational and legal form of JSC;
  • the organization's securities are admitted to organized trading;
  • organization is credit institution, the Bureau credit histories, an organization that is professional participant market valuable papers, an insurance organization, a clearing organization, a mutual insurance company, a trade organizer, a non-state pension or other fund (with the exception of a fund that has the status of an international fund in accordance with Federal Law No. 290-FZ of August 3, 2018), a joint-stock investment fund, management company joint-stock investment fund, mutual investment fund or non-state pension fund(with the exception of state off-budget funds);
  • the volume of proceeds from the sale of products (sales of goods, performance of work, provision of services) of the organization for 2018 exceeded 400 million rubles;
  • amount of assets balance sheet as of December 31, 2018, exceeds 60 million rubles;
  • the organization presents or discloses annual summary (consolidated) accounting (financial) statements.

Thus, for example, the organizational and legal form of a JSC obliges the organization to conduct a statutory audit, regardless of compliance with other criteria, and for a statutory audit of an LLC, the criterion may be, for example, the amount of revenue or the amount of assets.

Other cases of mandatory audit established by federal laws

In addition to the main criteria for a mandatory audit listed above, there are conditions under which an organization is required to conduct an audit due to the requirements of federal laws.

So, for example, a mandatory audit is carried out in relation to financial statements:

  • state-owned companies (clause 8, article 7.2 of the Federal Law of January 12, 1996 No. 7-FZ);
  • state corporations (clause 2, article 7.1 of the Federal Law of 12.01.1996 No. 7-FZ);
  • housing savings cooperatives (Article 54 of the Federal Law of December 30, 2004 No. 215-FZ);
  • developers (part 5 of article 3 of the Federal Law of December 30, 2004 No. 214-FZ);
  • non-profit organizations acting as a foreign agent (clause 1, article 32 of the Federal Law of 12.01.1996 No. 7-FZ);
  • self-regulatory organizations (part 4 of article 12 of the Federal Law of December 1, 2007 No. 315-FZ).

Mandatory accounting audit: where to submit the audit report?

Starting from the reporting for 2019, financial statements are submitted only to the Federal Tax Service (with some exceptions). And according to general rule reporting will need to be submitted electronically (reporting for 2019 can be submitted by small businesses on paper). For organizations whose reporting is subject to mandatory audit, the audit report must be submitted either together with the financial statements, or no later than 10 business days following the date of the audit report, but no later than December 31 (

What penalties are provided for an organization subject to statutory audit for failure to conduct a statutory audit?

On this issue, we take the following position:

Penalties for an organization subject to statutory audit for failure to conduct a statutory audit are currently not provided for by law.

At the same time, an organization and its officials may be held administratively liable on the basis of Art. 19.7 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation. The sanction of this article provides for a warning or imposition administrative fine: for officials - from 300 to 500 rubles; on the legal entities- from 3,000 to 5,000 rubles.

The statute of limitations for attraction under Art. 19.7 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation is three months after the last day of the deadline for submitting an audit report. In this situation, the last day for the submission of a mandatory copy of the audit report is December 31, 2019.

Federal Law N 402-FZ "On Accounting" is not provided.

When conducting a desk audit, the tax authorities may hold the organization liable for the absence of an audit report (within the established storage periods). Officials of an organization that does not have audit reports for previous years may be fined from 5,000 to 10,000 rubles (note 1 to article 15.11 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation) * (1).

Position justification:

An audit is an independent verification of the accounting (financial) statements (or part thereof) of the audited entity in order to express an opinion on the reliability of such statements (part 3 of article 1 of the Federal Law of December 30, 2008 N 307-FZ "On Auditing", hereinafter - Audit Law).

Federal Law of July 23, 2013 N 251-FZ from September 1, 2013 in Part 10 of Art. 13 of Law N 402-FZ was amended, according to which the reporting subject to mandatory publication, as well as mandatory audit, must not only be published along with the auditor's report, but also be submitted with it. However, Federal Law No. 357-FZ of December 21, 2013 (hereinafter referred to as Law No. 357-FZ) excludes these amendments. From January 1, 2014, Part 10 of Art. 13 of Law N 402-FZ returned to its previous edition. At the same time, Law N 357-FZ from January 1, 2014, part 2 of Art. 18 of Law N 402-FZ is supplemented by a norm providing that when a mandatory copy of the compiled annual accounting (financial) statements, which is subject to mandatory audit, is submitted to the state statistics authorities, an audit report on it is submitted together with such statements or no later than 10 working days from the date of following the date of signing the auditor's report, but no later than December 31 of the year following the reporting year.

Recall that the reporting year for annual accounting (financial) statements is a calendar year - from January 1 to December 31 inclusive, except for cases of creation, reorganization and liquidation of a legal entity (part 1 of article 15 of Law N 402-FZ).

That is, in this case, the audit report on the organization's annual financial statements for 2018 must be submitted to the state statistics authority no later than December 31, 2019.

In connection with the failure to submit an audit report within the prescribed period, the organization and its officials guilty of committing an offense may be held administratively liable on the basis of Art. 19.7 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation (see the letters of Rosstat dated December 4, 2017 N 04-4-04-4 / 136-SMI, dated February 16, 2016 N 13-13-2 / 28-SMI, dated December 16, 2013 N 1578 / OG, Sverdlovsky’s decision regional court of 08/06/2015 N 4A-660/2015, the decision of the Presidium of the Samara Regional Court of 08/26/2011 N а-424/2011, the decision of the Leninsky District Court of Vladivostok of 09/07/2012 N 12-824/2012).

The sanction of the above article provides for a warning or the imposition of an administrative fine: on officials - from 300 to 500 rubles; for legal entities - from 3 to 5 thousand rubles.

At the same time, untimely submission (non-submission) of financial statements and an auditor's report to it are two separate violations, and a fine can be collected for each of them (Rosstat letter dated February 16, 2016 N 13-13-2 / 28-SMI).

The statute of limitations for bringing to administrative responsibility under Art. 19.7 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation is three months (part 1 of article 4.5 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation). At the same time, administrative offenses expressed in failure to fulfill an obligation by a specific deadline cannot be considered as lasting (paragraph 3, clause 19 of the Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation dated January 27, 2003 N 2 "On Certain Issues Related to the Enactment of the Code of the Russian Federation on administrative offenses). Therefore, it is possible to attract under this article only within three months after the last day of the deadline for submitting a mandatory copy of the financial statements (audit report). In this situation, the deadline for submitting a copy of the audit report is December 31, 2019.

The obligation to present the auditor's report to others government bodies Law N 402-FZ does not provide.

According to paragraph 6 of Art. 5 of the Federal Law of December 30, 2008 N 307-FZ "On Auditing Activities", information on the results of a mandatory audit is subject to entry into the Unified Federal Register of information on the facts of the activities of legal entities. This should be done by the audit customer, i.e. organization.

Late submission of information, as well as failure to submit or submission of false information about a legal entity to the Register in cases where such entry is provided for by law, may be grounds for bringing to administrative responsibility under part 2 of Art. 6-8 art. 14.25 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation (warning or imposition of an administrative fine on officials in the amount of 5 to 10 thousand rubles; repeated violation entails the imposition of an administrative fine on officials in the amount of 10,000 to 50,000 rubles or disqualification for a period of one to three years ).

The formation and maintenance of the Register is carried out by its operator, the function of which is currently performed by Interfax CJSC (clause 4, article 6 of the Federal Law of July 18, 2011 N 228-FZ "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts Russian Federation in terms of revising the methods of protecting the rights of creditors when reducing authorized capital, changes in requirements for business entities in the event of a discrepancy between the authorized capital of the value net assets", paragraph 2 of the order of the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia dated March 21, 2011 N 121 "On the determination of the operator of the Unified Federal Register of Bankruptcy Information").

You can familiarize yourself with the procedure for entering information into the Register in the material: Encyclopedia of decisions. Unified federal register of information on the facts of the activities of legal entities.

With regard to penalties in the amount of seventy thousand rubles, we note the following.

Imposition of an administrative fine on officials in the amount of 10,000 to 20,000 rubles; for legal entities - from 20 to 70 thousand rubles (in case of repeated violation - the imposition of an administrative fine on officials in the amount of 30,000 to 50,000 rubles; for legal entities - from 100 to 150 thousand rubles) is provided for by Art. 13.19 Administrative Code of the Russian Federation. Such a penalty can be applied to an organization for failure to provide primary statistical data to the statistical authorities (or untimely provision, or provision of inaccurate data).

Primary statistical data is documented information on the forms of federal statistical observation received from respondents (clause 7, article 2 of the Federal Law of November 29, 2007 N 282-FZ "On official statistical accounting and the system of state statistics in the Russian Federation"). The obligation of respondents to provide primary statistical data is established in Art. 8 of Law N 282-FZ.

Note that amendments to Law No. 402-FZ, introduced by Federal Law No. 444-FZ of November 28, 2018 "On Amendments to the Federal Law "On Accounting", came into force on November 28, 2018. Most of the amendments come into force from January 1, 2020. Therefore, the financial statements for 2018 should be submitted in the same order, and for 2019 - already according to the new rules. The formats and procedure for submitting reports and audit reports (AZ) in electronic form will be approved by the Federal Tax Service. The tax department will also ensure access of interested persons to the state information resource.

Organizations subject to mandatory audit, along with financial statements, will have to submit to tax authority audit report. It will also need to be submitted in the form of an electronic document within the same time frame:

    together with the annual accounts;

    or within 10 working days from the day following the date of the auditor's report, but no later than December 31 of the year following the reporting year.

Simultaneously with the Law N 444-FZ, the Federal Law of November 28, 2018 N 447-FZ "On Amendments to Article 23 of Part One of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation" was also adopted, which also enters into force on January 1, 2020.

The current par. 5 p. 1 art. 23 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, the legislator divided the specified Law N 447-FZ into two parts. Clause 1 was supplemented by subclause 5.1 from January 1, 2020. It separately fixes the requirements for organizations that do not have the obligation to submit annual accounting (financial) statements constituting a state information resource in accordance with Law N 402-FZ (as amended by Law N 444- FZ). These are organizations whose reporting contains information classified as state secrets, as well as other organizations in cases established by the Government of the Russian Federation. They must submit annual accounting reports both to the territorial statistical bodies and to the Federal Tax Service at the location of the organization. At the same time, tax authorities will not take into account information from their reporting when forming a state information resource.

On November 28, 2018, the Ministry of Finance of Russia developed a draft law "On Amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation in Part of Establishing Responsibility for Failure to Submit a Mandatory Copy of Annual Accounting (Financial) Statements and an Audit Report to It" (ID N 02/04/06-18/00081866, posted on the Federal portal of draft regulatory legal acts (http://regulation.gov.ru/projects#search=02/04/06-18/00081866&npa=), which contains provisions that change penalties.

The draft law provides for supplementing Chapter 15 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation with Article 15.11.1. The amount of the fine for this project will depend on whether a mandatory audit is required. If yes, then the fine is much higher (see the project dossier in the online version of the GARANT system at https://base.garant.ru/56774776/). Thus, according to this draft, the untimely submission of reports by a legal entity, as well as its incomplete submission, may result in a fine of up to 200 thousand rubles; up to 500 thousand rubles - if such reporting is subject to mandatory audit.

In case of failure to submit reports, the fine for legal entities in relation to reporting subject to mandatory audit may be up to 700 thousand rubles.

- Encyclopedia of Solutions. Mandatory audit annual accounting (financial) statements;

- Encyclopedia of Solutions. Auditing of LLC;

- Encyclopedia of Solutions. Responsibility for violation of the deadlines for the submission of accounting (financial) statements to the statistical authorities;

- Encyclopedia of Solutions. Audit report;

- Encyclopedia of Solutions. Unified federal register of information on the facts of the activities of legal entities;

- Question : LLC on common system taxation, revenue for 2018 amounted to more than 800 million rubles, the number of employees is less than 100 people. What is the responsibility for not conducting a mandatory audit from 2019? What does a statutory audit imply: checking financial statements or tax reporting? What documents are examined during the statutory audit? (Response from the Legal Consulting Service GARANT, June 2019)

Annual accounting (financial) statements: one-window presentation procedure (T. Maslova, journal "Practical. Official materials and comments (720 hours)", N 1, January 2019);

Commentary on the Federal Law of November 28, 2018 N 444-FZ "On Amendments to the Federal Law" On Accounting "(B.L. Svain, journal" Normative acts for an accountant ", N 1, January 2019).

Prepared answer:
Legal Consulting Service Expert GARANT
Mozaleva Natalia

Response quality control:
Reviewer of the Legal Consulting Service GARANT
, member of RSA Gornostaev Vyacheslav

The material was prepared on the basis of an individual written consultation provided as part of the Legal Consulting service.

*(1) The Code of Administrative Offenses was supplemented with note 1.1 from June 9, 2019 (Federal Law No. 113-FZ of May 29, 2019):

1.1. The administrative liability provided for by this article for misrepresenting the indicators of accounting (financial) statements does not apply to the person who is entrusted with maintaining accounting, and to the person with whom the contract for the provision of accounting services has been concluded, if such a distortion was made as a result of a discrepancy between the primary accounting documents compiled by other persons and the accomplished facts of economic life and (or) non-transmission or untimely transmission of primary accounting documents for registration the data they contain in the accounting registers.

*(2) The list of cases of conducting a mandatory audit of accounting (financial) statements for 2018 is given in the Information of the Ministry of Finance of Russia dated January 15, 2019 "List of cases of conducting a mandatory audit of accounting (financial) statements for 2018 (according to the legislation of the Russian Federation)". The List summarizes cases of mandatory audit of accounting (financial) statements for 2018 provided for by the legislation of the Russian Federation. For each case, it is indicated which law establishes the mandatory audit, the types of audited statements, as well as the persons who are entitled to audit (see also Information Notice of the Ministry of Finance of Russia dated January 16, 2019 N IS-audit-27 "On the list of cases of mandatory audit of accounting (financial) reporting for 2018).

*(3) As a general rule, a limited liability company, unlike, for example, from joint-stock companies, is not obliged to publish reports on its activities (clause 1, article 49 of the LLC Law). See Encyclopedia of Solutions. Public reporting LLC.

Not all limited liability companies are required to audit financial statements at the end of the year. In the table, we have provided a complete list of organizations that must conduct an audit in 2020 and the general criteria for a mandatory audit for an LLC.

The criteria that oblige companies to conduct an audit are established by the Federal Law of August 30, 2008 No. 307-FZ "On Auditing". If, based on the results of 2019, at least one of these criteria is met, an audit for an LLC in 2020 is mandatory.

Mandatory audit criteria for LLC in 2020

There are no separate requirements specifically for the audit of an LLC by law. It is necessary to take into account the general criteria (clause 1 of article 5 No. 307-FZ). The total and organizational and legal criteria for a mandatory audit in 2020 for an LLC are as follows:

  1. The amount of revenue for the year preceding the reporting year > 400 million rubles ;
  2. The amount of assets on the balance sheet at the end of the year preceding the reporting > 60 million rubles ;
  3. LLC's securities are admitted to organized trading;
  4. The organization is a credit/insurance/clearing company, a credit history bureau, a professional participant in the securities market, a mutual insurance company, a trade organizer, an NPF, an AIF, an AIF management company, a mutual fund or an NPF (except for extra-budgetary funds);
  5. An organization files or publishes consolidated financial statements.

If an organization in the form of an LLC meets at least one of these criteria, it is necessary to conduct a mandatory audit of financial statements.

Tax officials will begin to communicate via SMS messages and at the same time will be less likely to make demands for the payment of debt. However, visits for inspection will become more frequent if the company has accumulated an impressive amount of arrears.

Important: officials plan to change the audit criteria in 2020 (draft law No. 273179-7). They propose to increase the amount of revenue to 600 million rubles, the amount of balance sheet assets - up to 200 million rubles. They also want to introduce a criterion for the number of employees - no more than 100 people for each of the two consecutive years preceding the reporting year.

When making a decision to conduct an audit of accounts, the company must not only take into account the requirements listed above, but also the laws governing the scope of activities. Despite the fact that the criteria for a mandatory audit are set out in a separate article of the law (we listed them above), the last subparagraph of paragraph 1 of Art. 5 of Law No. 307-FZ indicates the presence of additional criteria established by individual laws (see table).

Which LLCs are required to audit in 2020

Who is required to audit Law
State and municipal unitary enterprises (in cases determined by the owner) Art. 26 of the Federal Law of November 14, 2002 No. 161-FZ
NPO (in cases specified by law) Art. 32 of the Federal Law of January 12, 1996 No. 7-FZ, art. 6-7 of the Federal Law of December 30, 2006 No. 275-FZ
Credit consumer cooperatives Art. 28, 31 of the Federal Law of July 18, 2009 No. 190-FZ
Gambling organizers Art. 6 Federal Law 29.12.2006 No. 244-FZ

Please also note that Federal Law No. 14-FZ of February 8, 1998 on LLC does not contain criteria for when a mandatory audit is required. It states that the general meeting of the company's participants can decide on an audit, as well as prescribe the obligation to conduct an audit in the charter. This is an LLC initiative.

Audit check and changes in PBU 1/2008

The Ministry of Finance, by letter No. 07-04-09/2694 of January 19, 2018, published Recommendations to auditors. From section II of the document it follows that the auditors will not make comments if the company did not rewrite the methods in the accounting policy due to amendments to PBU 1/2008.

Starting August 6, 2017, companies must make new accounting choices. The rules have changed for cases where there are no methods in the standard. Then you need to develop them yourself. In this case, it is necessary to take into account sequentially:

  • IFRS;
  • federal and (or) industry standards on similar issues;
  • bookkeeping advice.

First of all, international rules should be followed if there are no methods in domestic standards. For example, in a situation with leasing, it is necessary to take as a basis the rules that are prescribed in IFRS (Appendix 1 to the order of the Ministry of Finance dated 11.06.16 No. 111n).

According to the department, companies have had to develop their methods in accordance with international standards before. Therefore, the updated PBU 1/2008 did not add the obligation to read international standards. She was before.

Changes to the rules for compiling accounting policies came into force on August 6, 2017. At the same time, no special deadlines were prescribed for the application of the new edition of PBU 1/2008. In this case, the accounting policy must be adjusted. And reflect changes in accounting methods retrospectively (clauses 14, 15 of PBU 1/2008).

In 2020, it is necessary to keep a new record of income tax calculations. The newspaper "Accounting. Taxes. Law" figured out the essence of the amendments to PBU 18/02 and offered practical recommendations to accountants for work.

Many companies still use the methods from the old instructions of industry departments and ministries. There is a risk that a check using the new algorithm will show that the methods cannot be applied. Then you need to choose correctly and recalculate the whole year.

The Ministry of Finance recommended that auditors not consider it a violation if the company did not change the accounting methods that it adopted before the entry into force of Order No. 69n dated April 28, 2017. Those methods that companies developed according to the rules before the adjustments in PBU 1/2008 do not need to be canceled.

The Ministry of Finance considers it rare that domestic methods contradict international ones. Auditors should not consider it a violation that the company operated its own methods adopted before August 2017.

It is possible that the auditors will decide that it is not necessary to check accounting methods in the policy at all, if they are not written down in federal standards.

The main criteria and subjects of mandatory audit are provided for by Federal Law No. 307-FZ dated December 30, 2008. At the same time, there were no changes in the 2018 criteria for the statutory audit. In general, an organization is required to conduct an annual audit of its financial statements for 2018 if it satisfies any of the conditions specified in Part 1 of Art. 5 of the Federal Law of December 30, 2008 No. 307-FZ.

Thus, the criteria for a mandatory audit are:

  • the organization has the organizational and legal form of JSC;
  • the organization's securities are admitted to organized trading;
  • the organization is a credit institution, a credit history bureau, an organization that is a professional participant in the securities market, an insurance organization, a clearing organization, a mutual insurance company, a trade organizer, a non-state pension or other fund, a joint-stock investment fund, a management company of a joint-stock investment fund, a unit investment fund or a non-state pension fund (with the exception of state extra-budgetary funds);
  • the volume of proceeds from the sale of products (sales of goods, performance of work, provision of services) of the organization for 2017 exceeded 400 million rubles;
  • balance sheet assets as of 31.12.2017 exceeds 60 million rubles;
  • the organization presents or discloses annual summary (consolidated) accounting (financial) statements.

Thus, for example, the organizational and legal form of a JSC obliges the organization to conduct a statutory audit, regardless of compliance with other criteria, and for a statutory audit of an LLC, the criterion may be, for example, the amount of revenue or the amount of assets.

The auditor's report is not included in the financial statements, and therefore submit it to tax office together with annual reporting is not necessary (Article 14 of the Federal Law of December 6, 2011 No. 402-FZ, pp. 5 p. 1 art. 23 Tax Code of the Russian Federation, Letter of the Ministry of Finance of January 30, 2013 No. 03-02-07 / 1/1724).

It is necessary to submit the conclusion obtained as a result of the mandatory audit to Rosstat. This must be done along with the annual accounts. And if at the time of submission of such reports to Rosstat auditing not yet completed, then the audit report must be submitted to the statistics authority no later than 10 working days following the date of the auditor's report, but no later than December 31 ( Part 2 Art. 18 of the Federal Law of December 6, 2011 No. 402-FZ).

Information on the results of the mandatory audit, in accordance with paragraph 6 of Art. 5 of the federal law "On Auditing" dated December 30, 2008 No. 307, should be published on the Federal resource - a portal containing information about legally significant facts of a different nature. Subjects themselves enter information into the register economic activity(enterprises, organizations of any organizational and legal forms, individual entrepreneurs, etc.).

The message published on the Federal resource must contain the following information:

  • information about the audited company: name, TIN, OGRN;
  • information on who conducts the audit: name of the audit organization or full name of the auditor, TIN, PSRN (for the organization) or SNILS (for the auditor);
  • a list of accounting (financial) statements in respect of which the audit was carried out and the period covered by the audit;
  • the auditor's opinion on the reliability of the financial statements audited by him and the facts that may have a significant impact on the veracity of the information given in it;
  • the date of the auditor's report.

The publication of the auditor's report in 2018 must be carried out within 3 days from the moment the audit is completed (Clause 3.1 of Chapter III of the order approved by Order of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation dated April 5, 2013 No. 178). Information can only be submitted in electronic form (clause 5, article 7.1 of the Federal Law No. 129), while the authenticity of each transmitted message is certified by an electronic digital signature (EDS).