Lost invoices and incorrect signatures will be heavily fined.

This is a draft that has a major impact on the daily operations of businesses. Businesses can refer to and comment 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 fines stipulated in this decree are 10 times higher than the current ones.

Lost invoice, fine up to 10 million VND

Ms. Kim Thanh, accountant of PE Vina Chemical Production and Trading Company Limited, said she is very afraid of losing invoices. The company has many sales staff who can take purchase invoices home or give them to the buyer. There have been many cases of lost invoices. Every time they are lost, the handling is very complicated. Especially, the fines are very heavy.

She shared that accountants who lose invoices usually do not report the loss to the tax authorities immediately. If they report the loss of an invoice before the invoice storage period, they will be fined 4-8 million VND, based on Decree 49/2016 on penalties for price and invoice management... To avoid this, enterprises will wait until the invoice enters the storage period before reporting the loss and will only be fined 0.5-1 million VND (based on Decree 105/2013 on penalties in the field of accounting and auditing).

In fact, the sooner and more timely a business reports a lost invoice, the more severely it will be fined.

Thus, there is an unreasonable reality that the sooner and on time a business reports a lost invoice, the heavier the fine will be. The Ministry of Finance also knows this loophole. Therefore, in the draft replacing Decree 105/2013, the Ministry has increased the fine to 10 times the current level, up to 10 million VND. Thus, if a business reports a lost invoice late, the fine will be heavier. Specifically, according to the draft, "unsafe storage of accounting documents, damage or loss of documents during the storage period" will be fined 5-10 million VND.

Signing also… shaky

Enterprises also need to pay special attention to signatures. According to the draft of the Ministry of Finance, acts such as signing documents in red ink; signing in faded ink; signing documents with pre-engraved signature stamps; disbursement documents not signed on each copy... are all subject to a fine of 3-5 million VND. These are new regulations, currently not included in Decree 105/2013/ND-CP.

In addition, photocopying accounting documents not in accordance with the law will also be fined up to 5 million VND. Enterprises must also establish a council and draw up a "record to identify accounting documents that cannot be copied" according to the regulations. If not, the enterprise will be fined.

In particular, those who sign invoices and documents need to pay close attention to their signatures. According to the draft, “a person’s signature that is inconsistent or not in accordance with the signature sample registration book” will be fined up to 10 million VND.

Lawyer Tran Xoa, Director of Minh Dang Quang Law Firm, said that a person’s signature cannot always be exactly the same. Sometimes it is long, sometimes short, sometimes big, sometimes small… However, businesses should note that signatures must be consistent. For example, if the name Trang is signed “trang”, then always sign the full letters, not abbreviated as “tr”, which would be a violation because the signature is inconsistent.

According to Ho Chi Minh City Law Newspaper