Mandatory audit and submission of annual financial statements

LEGAL DIGEST, NEWS \ 20.01.2022

We remind you of the need to submit annual financial statements and an audit report for 2021 to the Federal Tax Service Inspectorate.

All organizations are required to submit reporting, regardless of the applicable taxation system. The deadline for its submission is not later than March 31, 2022 . The submission form is electronic one through the official website of the Federal Tax Service (FTS) or via telecommunications link through an electronic document flow operator.

For violation of the rules for the submission of financial statements, administrative liability and liability in accordance with the Tax Code of the Russian Federation in the form of a fine are provided:

• for legal entities – in the amount of 200 rubles for each document not submitted (clause 1, article 126 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation);
• for officers – in the amount of 300 – 500 rubles (part 1 of article 15.6 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation).

Also, in accordance with the Federal Law “On Audit Activities”, companies have to submit to the tax authorities an audit report on financial statements. For reporting for 2021, it is possible to submit a report not later than March 31, 2022.

If the report is not ready for this period, it should be submitted within 10 working days from the day following the date of signing, but not later than December 31, 2022.

An auditor’s report is required to be submitted if the organization’s financial statements are subject to mandatory audit. These companies are: 

• Organizations whose securities are admitted to on-exchanged trading, as well as issuers of emission securities.
• Organizations that are professional securities traders, credit reference bureaus.
• Organizations that have the organizational and legal form of the fund if the receipt of property, including monetary funds, for the year preceding the reporting one exceeds 3,000,000 rubles.
• Organizations whose total revenue from the sale of goods (performance of works, provision of services) for the year, preceding the accounting year, exceed 800,000,000 rubles, or the volume of assets on the balance sheet at the end of the year, preceding the accounting year, exceeds 400,000,000 rubles.

Russian legislation does not provide for separate penalties for failure to conduct a mandatory audit. However, the company may be held administratively liable for failure to submit an audit report.

Failure to submit this document within the prescribed time limit entails the imposition of a fine (article 19.7 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation):

• For officers – a fine of 300 – 500 rubles;
• For legal entities – a fine of 3,000 – 5,000 rubles.

Unavailability of auditor’s report for the established period of keeping of documents (5 years) involves the following penalty only for officers (article 15.11 of the Administrative Offences Code of the Russian Federation):

• Fine of 5,000 – 10,000 rubles.
• For repeated violation – the fine of 10,000 – 20,000 rubles or disqualification of an officer for a period from one to two years.

Also, information about the results of a mandatory audit should be placed in the Unified Federal Register of Information on the Facts of the Activities of Legal Entities (Federal Resource). The auditor’s report, in this case, will not be published in full, but only in part of the information that is important and accessible to others (without disclosing data containing the company’s trade secrets).

For late submission of information from the audit report to the Federal Resource, officers are subject to administrative liability under Article 14.25 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation in the form of a warning or a fine of 5,000 rubles.

If this information is not provided at all or is unreliable, then the scope of punishment for officers will be as follows:

• Fine of 5,000 – 10,000 rubles.
• For repeated violation – the fine of 10,000 – 50,000 rubles or disqualification of an officer for a period from one to two years.

If you have any questions about whether your company needs to carry out the mandatory audit, please do not hesitate to contact us! However, please note that due to the requirements of Russian legislation, Acsour does not provide audit services. If necessary, we will be happy to provide you with a legal support and a list of recommended auditing companies.