In what cases do tax authorities have no right to refuse to accept reports?

Recently, tax authorities have become increasingly reluctant to accept tax returns.

For an organization, this can result in a whole bunch of problems, in particular:

• a fine for failure to submit reports (from 1,000 rubles to 30 percent of the tax amount, part 1 of article 119 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation);
• blocking the account (if the declaration is not submitted after the expiration of the period plus 10 days, clause 1, clause 3, article 76 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation);
• delay in VAT refund, since while the issue is being resolved, a desk audit of the declaration is not carried out.

Therefore, in order to counter the illegal refusal of the inspectorate to recognize the declaration as submitted, it is important to understand when, in accordance with the law, the reporting is considered submitted and when it is not.

Tax legislation in this regard contains different rules for tax returns and reporting on insurance premiums.

Tax returns

For them, the concepts of submitting them to companies and accepting them by inspections are differentiated.

It appears that legislators did this in vain, as confusion arises.

Thus, from the point of view of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, if a company submits a declaration to the Federal Tax Service on time and in the prescribed form, then it will no longer face either a fine or blocking of its account. The desk audit should also start from this moment, since its beginning is precisely the day the declaration is submitted, and not at all the day it is received by the Federal Tax Service (Part 2 of Article 88 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation).

Further, the Code literally states that the tax authority does not have the right to refuse to accept a declaration submitted in the established form (format) and is obliged, at the request of the taxpayer, to put a mark on its acceptance on the copy of the declaration.

Thus, according to the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, submitting and accepting a declaration is one and the same thing. The fact of submitting a declaration in the current form and its acceptance by the inspectorate are identified in the Code. He makes it clear that the submitted declaration cannot be rejected.

In addition to the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, this issue is also regulated by administrative regulations, dedicated, in particular, to the acceptance of declarations. It was approved by order of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation and registered with the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation. Therefore, tax authorities are obliged to follow them. This regulation contains a list of grounds for refusal to accept tax reports, which inspectors use.

As a result, a contradiction arises between the Tax Code of the Russian Federation and administrative regulations, the right of organizations to consider the declaration submitted and the duty of inspectors not to accept or check it until the company submits a corrected version.

To be fair, we note that not all inspection refusals are motivated by reference to the designated regulations. Often, tax officials simply invent reasons for refusing to consider the declaration submitted.

It's getting to the point of absurdity. For example, the Federal Tax Service increasingly began to declare that they would not accept reports until they saw with their own eyes the general director of the company who signed it in his office. Or that the signs of fictitiousness available to the organization automatically turn the submitted declaration into fictitious, and therefore into unreal, that is, into unrepresented. Or that they will not accept a VAT return with deductions, since the counterparty did not submit “mirror” reporting for this tax, and until he deigns to submit his version and pay the tax to the budget, the company’s form will not be accepted for verification.

All this has nothing to do with the provisions of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, which describe the grounds for considering a declaration not submitted. Therefore, the indicated actions of tax officials directly contradict the Code and are illegal. Calling a spade a spade is simply bureaucratic arbitrariness.

At the same time, it is sometimes possible to prove that this is so only in court. Read examples of court decisions in the reviews of judicial practice given below.

Calculation of insurance premiums

2. For the calculation of insurance premiums, in this sense, everything is somewhat simpler.

The legislation on insurance premiums does not divide the concept of representation into two components. The calculation is considered submitted, that is, submitted and accepted, if the company has not made a single error from the special list in the Tax Code of the Russian Federation.

At the same time, here too there are excesses on the part of previously extra-budgetary funds, and now tax inspectorates. Fortunately, it is also quite possible to prove the inconsistency of refusals to accept payments for contributions.

For clarity, we present the described rules for submission and acceptance of both types of reporting in the table.

TABLE: “Conditions for filing and accepting a tax return and calculating insurance premiums”

ARTICLE Prokazin E.A., editor-expert of the magazines “Time of the Accountant”