Losing receipts or having incorrect signatures will result in heavy fines.

This is a draft that significantly impacts the daily operations of businesses. Businesses can refer to and provide feedback on the Ministry of Finance's website.

The Ministry of Finance has announced a draft decree on penalties in the field of accounting and auditing. This decree will replace the current Decree 105/2013. Notably, many of the penalties stipulated in this decree are 10 times higher than the current ones.

Losing a receipt can result in a fine of up to 10 million VND.

Ms. Kim Thanh, an accountant at PE Vina Chemical Production and Trading Company Limited, said she is very afraid of losing invoices. The company has many sales staff who may take purchase invoices home or deliver them to buyers. There have been many cases of lost invoices. Each time they are lost, the process is very complicated, and the penalties are particularly heavy.

She shared that accountants who lose invoices often don't report the loss to the tax authorities immediately. Reporting the loss before the invoice retention period results in a fine of 4-8 million VND, according to Decree 49/2016 on penalties for price and invoice management. To circumvent this, businesses wait until the invoice is in the retention period before reporting the loss, at which point they are only fined 0.5-1 million VND (based on Decree 105/2013 on penalties in the accounting and auditing field).

In fact, the sooner and more promptly a business reports the loss of an invoice, the heavier the penalty will be.

Thus, there is an illogical situation where the earlier and more promptly a business reports the loss of an invoice, the heavier the penalty. The Ministry of Finance is aware of this loophole. Therefore, in the draft replacing Decree 105/2013, the Ministry has increased the penalty tenfold, to 10 million VND. This means that if a business reports the loss of an invoice late, the penalty will be much heavier. Specifically, according to the draft, "unsafe storage of accounting documents, resulting in damage or loss of documents within the retention period" will be fined 5-10 million VND.

Even signing my name makes me nervous…

Businesses also need to pay special attention to signatures. According to the draft by the Ministry of Finance, actions such as signing documents with red ink; signing with ink that fades; signing documents using pre-engraved signature stamps; and not signing each copy of payment vouchers... will all be fined 3-5 million VND. These are new regulations, not currently included in Decree 105/2013/ND-CP.

Furthermore, photocopying accounting documents in violation of legal regulations is also punishable by a fine of up to 5 million VND. Businesses must also establish a committee and create a "minutes document to identify accounting documents that cannot be photocopied" as required by law. Failure to do so will result in a fine.

In particular, those signing invoices and documents need to pay close attention to their signatures. According to the draft, "a person's signature that is inconsistent or does not match the registered signature mẫu" will be fined up to 10 million VND.

Lawyer Tran Xoa, Director of Minh Dang Quang Law Firm, stated that a person's signature cannot always be exactly the same. Sometimes it can be long, sometimes short, sometimes large, sometimes small... However, businesses should note that signatures must be consistent. For example, if the name Trang is signed with the word "trang," it should always be signed with the full word, not abbreviated as "tr," as this would be a violation due to inconsistency.

According to the Ho Chi Minh City Law Newspaper.