New criteria for conducting a mandatory audit

LEGAL DIGEST, NEWS \ 26.01.2021

Starting from January 1, 2021, a Federal law came into force, which establishes new criteria for conducting mandatory audits of companies.

According to the amendments, the following companies are subject to mandatory audit:

• Organizations whose securities are approved for on-exchange trading (that is, all joint-stock companies that were required to conduct an audit due to the fact that their organizational and legal form is a joint-stock company, will no longer be required to do it).
• 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 (previously, the threshold for the corresponding amount was not set).
• Organizations whose total revenue from the sale of goods (performance of works, provision of services) for the year preceding the reporting one exceeds 800 million rubles, or the amount of balance sheet assets at the end of the year preceding the reporting one exceeds 400,000,000 rubles (previously, these figures were set in the amount of 400,000,000 and 60,000,000 respectively).

According to the definition of Law No. 209-FZ, small business entities include organizations whose income for the previous calendar year does not exceed 800,000,000 rubles. This means that the specified category of companies is exempt from conducting a mandatory audit from the beginning of the current year.

A special clause is made if the organization is not required to conduct a mandatory audit in accordance with the new changes, but in respect of such a company, the accounting reports for 2020 are already being checked. In this situation, the new criteria will be applied starting with the reporting for 2021.

Please be reminded that in accordance with the Law “On mandatory audit”, companies have to submit an auditor’s report on their accounting reports to the tax authorities based on the results of an audit. For the reporting for 2020, it is necessary to submit a report not later than March 31, 2021.

If the opinion is not yet ready for this period, it is possible to submit it within 10 working days from the day following the date of signing, but not later than December 31, 2021.

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):

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

Please note that due to Russian legislation requirements Acsour does not provide audit services. But if you have any questions about whether your company needs to carry out the audit, we will be happy to answer!