According to Article 44 of the Code of Administrative Offences, fines for tax violations can be conditionally divided into two categories: fines expressed as percentages, and fines measured in monthly calculation index (MCI). The maximum amount of MCI fines for large business entities is 2000 MCI. In accordance with Article 58 of the Code of Administrative Offences, when committing several violations, the total amount of the fine cannot exceed three times the maximum limit, i.e., 6000 MCI.
The client, a major trading company, issued a large number of electronic invoices late in 2019, failing to meet the 15-day deadline from the date of turnover. This happened in one day: the electronic invoice information system hung up, then was simply forgotten.
Based on this fact, the client was held liable under Part 4 of Article 280-1 (Violation of invoice issuance procedure), which provides for liability of 100 MCI. The fine is quite severe, as it is imposed for each electronic invoice, even if the turnover amount was 100 tenge. Since there were many electronic invoices, a fine of 6000 MCI was imposed, i.e., 15,150,000 tenge. I was engaged to appeal this fine. We agreed with the client to work for a percentage of success without a fixed fee. Subsequently, the client was fined again for 15,150,000 tenge. Total — 30,300,000 tenge.
During the work, I discovered that some electronic invoices were issued to legal entities, some to individuals for cash payments. According to paragraph 13 of Article 412 of the Tax Code, when selling goods to individuals paying in cash, issuing invoices is not required. The accountant, it turns out, did what was not required. And the tax officials did not bother to investigate thoroughly and drew up a protocol for all electronic invoices.
I stated this in court. As a result, the court terminated proceedings on electronic invoices issued to individuals, and for electronic invoices issued to legal entities, applied a 30% discount provided by Part 2 of Article 819 of the Code of Administrative Offences. Overall, out of all fines totaling 30 million, 20 million tenge was cancelled.
