In the process of work, accounting service specialists perform a lot of mathematical calculations, during which errors or shortcomings are inevitable. In some cases, such oversights are referred to as "counting errors", and the necessary actions are taken to eliminate them.

What it is?

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Arithmetic errors made when determining the size of the accountant wages employees of an organization are called counting errors.

Such shortcomings arise when elementary mathematical operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication) are performed with computational errors.

What rules of law govern?

Documenting

Documentation of the operation for the return of overpaid money to the employee is carried out according to one of the following options:

Collection period

The amount of the overpayment, with the consent of the employee, must be returned within a month after the counting error.

If there is no consent, and the employer goes to court, the term limitation period debt repayment is three years.

Reflection of return in accounting

In accounting, the return of overpaid amounts is made out by the following entries on the credit of the account intended for settlements with personnel for wages (account 70).

The unrecovered amount of the surplus (if the Court refused to recover or the limitation period has expired) is written off.

Correction of personal income tax calculations

Funds overpaid as a result of a counting error are not recognized. material gain employee, and it is unlawful to qualify them as an interest-free loan and tax them at an increased rate of 35%.

If, upon detection of a counting error, the employee agrees to deduct the amount of the overpayment from him, personal income tax at a rate of 13% is not charged, since this amount of money will be returned to the cash desk or to the organization's current account.

If the employee has already left the organization, or does not agree to return the excessively received funds, and the lawsuit drags on for a long time (more than 12 months), the employer submits information about the impossibility of withholding tax from the income paid to the employee to the Tax Inspectorate.

Should I make changes to RSV-1 PFR?

On the basis of a change in the RSV-1 PFR (calculation of accrued and paid insurance premiums), if a counting error is found, it is not necessary to make it by compiling updated calculations.

This error will be reflected in the corresponding document for the period when it was discovered.

Thus, if erroneous payments were already included in the taxable base for the previous quarter (for example, 1), but this was discovered in the next period (for example, 2), then the error is reflected in the period of its discovery (in the 2nd quarter).

If another type of error

If an error is made in the calculations that is not related to the accounting, the employer has the right to notify the employee of the discovery of such and ask for the return of the money accrued by mistake.

Under Article 1109 Civil Code RF, if the employee does not agree to the return, even the judicial authorities are not entitled to recover these amounts from the employee of the organization.

However, the unrefunded amount should in this case be subject to personal income tax.

Examples

In August 2016, Anna Valentinovna Mironova, an employee of the sales department of Orion LLC, instead of 10 thousand rubles (salary), 20 thousand rubles were transferred through the fault of the accountant. The amount of money was mistakenly sent twice. The employee was offered to return the funds, but she refused, it was impossible to recover the funds. The error was not countable.

In February 2019, Anatoly Anatolyevich Ivanov, an employee of a trading enterprise, was credited with 28,000 rubles instead of the prescribed 27,000 rubles. The accountant explained that the extra 1000 rubles was accrued as a result of an error in adding up the payments due to the employee of the organization for the provision of additional paid services to customers. Ivanov A.A., after reading the error report, wrote a written permission to return the overly listed Money. The incident was settled, as 1000 rubles was contributed by the employee to the cash desk of the organization.

Arbitrage practice

Modern judicial practice regarding the recognition of an accountant's mistake and the recovery of an excessively received amount from an employee is quite contradictory.

However, in most cases, only an error that occurred during the incorrect application of mathematical rules is recognized as countable.

In most cases, erroneous or repeated data entry for payroll calculation is not recognized as an accounting error.

If the employer is sure that the error in accruing the wrong amount of money to the employee occurred as a result of a calculation error (calculation), and the employee voluntarily refuses to make a return, going to court should have a positive result.

To apply to the judiciary, the accountant draws up an explanatory note with mathematical calculations, in which the calculation that caused the incorrect calculation is clearly presented, as well as pay slips, statements and other supporting documents.

If the error occurred as a result of a failure of the accounting program, you will need to provide an opinion from an IT specialist that the accounting error arose precisely because of problems in the operation of the program installed on the computer.

If the employer, without the written consent of the employee, deducted previously overpaid funds from his salary, even if there is a justification for this action (for example, an error in calculations), he will be obliged to return the withheld funds in full with compensation for moral damage to the employee (if he applied to the Court, finding a hold without consent).

The employer may recover the overpaid amount if he made a counting error. In order to recover overpaid amounts in court, the employer must prove that the payment was made due to an accounting error.

Overpayment due to a counting error occurs with both employed and laid-off employees. In the first case, the employer can return the overpaid amounts without going to court. The employer must make sure that a mistake was made in mathematical operations, then the network was incorrectly performed mathematical (addition, subtraction, division, multiplication). After that, you need to offer the employee to return the money within a certain period or agree to the deduction. On the basis of an application with consent, it is necessary to issue an order to withhold 20% of earnings monthly. If the employee has already been fired, you will have to go to court. The court will need to submit documents proving the counting error and paint a separate calculation algorithm. If there is an error in the program, a report from the IT specialist will be required, which should fix the system failure and indicate how the problems affected the computing operations.

Situations when listed in Art. 137 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation. One of them - the employee received more than expected due to a counting error. We can talk about overpaid wages, bonuses or benefits (due to illness, children). Counting error- this is an arithmetic error, that is, incorrect performance of mathematical operations (letter of Rostrud dated 01.10.2012 No. 1286-6-1.

In most cases, the issue of a refund is decided in court, as employees rarely agree to do this voluntarily. However, it should be noted that the employer will not be able to recover the overpayment if the accountant made a technical error or incorrectly applied the norm. The employer will return the money only if he proves a counting error.

Evidence of a counting error

For the court, you should prepare an explanatory note from an accountant with mathematical calculations. It needs to clearly show the calculation that led to the counting error. Pay slips and statements must be attached to the certificate. But these are additional documents, not the main ones. You can't win with them in court

Employers often cite errors in accounting programs. In such cases, attention should be paid to the fact that a failure in the program and double payment of salaries are mathematical errors. They do not apply to the mistake of the employer in applying the norms of the law.

Often an accountant makes a typo, a typo. In such cases, the employer has a chance to recover money if he transferred the employee much more than his usual earnings. For example, instead of 11 thousand, the employer transferred almost 1 million rubles to the employee.

A technical error

A technical error is an incorrect data entry.

A number of oversights of accountants are classified by courts as technical rather than counting errors. In these cases, the overpayment will remain with the employee. For example, the court recognizes a technical error if the low qualification of an accountant led to it. The negligence of an accountant when calculating salaries also rarely results in a counting error. Most of them work with programs that already have all the necessary formulas. Therefore, the courts classify the errors of accountants as technical. Such an error can be:

Misinterpretation of tax benefits;

Wrong choice of coefficient when calculating earnings;

Indication of incorrect initial data for calculating payments, etc.

Most likely, it will not be possible to reclassify these shortcomings as a counting error.

The court will refuse to refund the amounts if it does not establish a connection between the program failure and the counting error, in particular if it led to the counting error. By itself, a technical failure does not indicate a counting error. Therefore, you should use a report or conclusion from an IT specialist (internal or invited) about problems in the program. But the act of detecting a counting error is not suitable for these purposes.

Judicial practice shows that courts recognize errors as technical in the following cases:

1. Invalid data entry into the program
2. Double transfer of salary, material assistance, bonuses, benefits.
3. Payment of one period for several reasons.
4. Failure to comply with the calculation rules, which are provided for by the regulatory act.

The employer should remember that without the consent of the employee, money from earnings cannot be withheld. Even with full confidence in the presence of a counting error, you should not rush to hold, as there is a high probability of violating the procedure. In such a situation, without the consent of the employee, it is impossible to withhold wages (part 3 of article 137 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation).

When the employee reveals the deduction, he will go to court. The court will oblige the employer to return the money to the employee along with compensation for non-pecuniary damage. In this case, the court will not examine whether the employer had grounds to demand the return of overpaid amounts.

To request consent, a written notice must be made. The employee must be offered to write a statement or fill out a box in the notification. In any case, the employee must write in his own hand that he does not dispute the basis and amount of deductions or agrees with them.

If the employee agrees to return the money, give him 3 working days for this, by analogy with the travel allowance report. If the employee does not agree to the hold, he will ignore any information.

When the voluntary repayment period expires, the employer has a month to issue a withholding order. An order should be issued only if the employee agrees to the deduction. It doesn't matter if he wrote a statement or filled out a notice.

If the employee has not signed the consent to the withholding or the employer has missed the monthly deadline, then you need to go to court.

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What to do if the accountant admitted accounting error in payroll? It is especially important to pay attention to the case when the mistake is made in a big way. That is, in fact, the employee was overpaid. How then to retain excess funds and what to do? Let's consider this question in detail.

What is it about

First, let's define what the conversation is about. So, accounting error in payroll any arithmetic oversight. Such a definition is proposed by Rostrud in clarifications dated October 1, 2012 No. 1286-6-1. We will focus on it when considering the issue.

It turns out that a mistake made in the arithmetic calculations of the amount of wages should be called a counting one.

EXAMPLE
An error occurred while entering the initial correct data into the program. The result was incorrect. The data may be incorrect and due to the influence of the human factor.

Is the counting error:

1. arising from the repeated transfer of the monthly amount of earnings by the employer to his employee;
2. when the unpaid rest of the employee was not taken into account in the calculation of wages;
3. accounting made more deductions on income tax than the employee should.

Such situations, according to the ruling of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of January 20, 2012 No. 59-B11-17, cannot be recognized as countable. The fact is that they are not allowed in the course of certain mathematical calculations.

A clear distinction between the concept of counting and non-counting errors is important so that the employer, depending on this, can take appropriate measures. In the event that an employee was given less money than was due, he should be given the missing amount. If it is necessary to withhold funds, the actions of the employer will be different depending on the type of mistake made.

If a when calculating wages - counting error

Part 2 of Article 137 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation states that in this case it is permissible to withhold the amount overpaid to the employee.

But what to do if the employee does not give written consent to withhold funds due to accounting error in payroll? In this case, on the basis of Article 248 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, the employer can go to court.

If the error is not countable

If, when paying an employee his earnings, an error was made that cannot be attributed to the account, the employer must know: if the employee does not agree to withhold the excess amount, it will be impossible to return the funds. Even through the court! The only option is to obtain the written consent of the employee to withhold the amount of money paid in excess of the due amount.

Journal website« Salary in the institution»

Electronic journal« Salary in the institution»

Let's see in what cases you can count on the return of amounts overpaid to the employee and what to do with accrued personal income tax and contributions.

In what cases can an overpayment be deducted from an employee's salary?

According to the law Russian Federation, only if a counting error was made in salaries and benefits, or the overpayment occurred due to dishonesty on the part of the employee, the excess can be returned (Article 1109 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). Moreover, in the latter situation, the body for consideration of individual labor disputes must recognize the guilt of the employee in failure to comply with labor standards or simple (part 3 of article 155, part 3 of article 157 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation).

The employer has the right to decide on deductions from the employee's salary no later than one month from the date of expiration of the term, in order to pay off incorrect payments. And only on condition that the employee does not dispute the grounds and amounts of deduction (Article 137 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation). At the same time, taking into account the opinion of Rostrud (letter dated August 9, 2007 No. 3044-6-0), it is necessary to obtain the written consent of the employee.

If the employee does not agree, the recovery can be carried out only through the court. In accordance with Article 392 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, an employer has the right to go to court in disputes over compensation by an employee for damage caused to the employer within one year from the date of its discovery.

The decision of the employer to withhold, as a rule, is drawn up by an order (instruction) of the institution in any form, and the employee is acquainted with the order against signature. In addition, a counting error in the calculation of wages must be recorded, for example, in an act.

Amounts generally cannot be recovered from an employee if wages are overpaid to the employee as a result of:

• incorrect application of the law (for example, paid vacation longer than expected, paid work on a day off was accrued in double the amount in cases where it should have been single, etc.);
• accrual of the same amount of wages twice (ruling of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of January 20, 2012 No. 59-B11-17);
• incorrect application of the organization's regulatory legal acts (for example, an accountant accrued a bonus to an employee that was not set for him, mistakenly paid bonuses without a corresponding order from management, etc.).

In such cases, recovery, as a rule, is made from an employee who made a mistake that resulted in an overpayment. The maximum amount of deductions from wages is established by article 138 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation. Thus, the total amount of all deductions for each payment of wages cannot exceed 20 percent.

What are counting errors?

Excessively paid wages to an employee in case of incorrect application of labor legislation or other regulatory legal acts containing labor law norms cannot be recovered from him (Article 137 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation). At the same time, attention should be paid to the absence of a definition of a counting error in the current legislation.

Previously, such a definition was contained in paragraph 51 of the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions of February 23, 1984 No. 191, which became invalid on April 12, 2004. Under the counting in the said resolution was understood an arithmetic error. A similar position was taken by Rostrud in a letter of October 1, 2012 No. 1286-6-1: an error made during arithmetic calculations is considered to be a counting error.

The existing judicial practice regarding the interpretation of the concept of "counting error" is very contradictory. However, in most cases, the judiciary is inclined to understand the counting error as made directly in the calculation process during mathematical operations, that is, the incorrect application of the rules of mathematics.

In this regard, the courts do not recognize as a counting error, in particular, the incorrect application of the rules of law or the erroneous (repeated) use of inappropriate source data in the calculation.

How to reflect the return of an overpayment by an employee in accounting

If an agreement is reached with the employee that he will return the surplus from the payment accrued to him (will pay the required amount to the cashier), then budget institution the following entries should be made:

	Debit	Credit
When identifying and repaying an overpayment in the current year
Overpaid wages cancelled.	401 20 211 "Payroll Expenses"	302 11 730 "Increase in wage arrears"
In case of overpayment for previous years
Accrued income of the current year in the amount of the identified overpayment of previous years	205 81 560 "Increase accounts receivable other income"	401 10 180 "Other expenses"
The amount of the overpayment entered by the employee into the cashier	201 34 510 "Receipt of funds to the cash desk of the institution"	205 81 660 "Decrease in receivables from other income"

If an overpayment is detected, a Certificate (f. 0504833) is issued, which is the basis for reflecting the amounts of the overpayment in the accounting registers. If an overpayment for previous years is detected, these amounts must be taken into account as income, while the amount of the overpayment is subject to reimbursement by the employee minus the personal income tax withheld.

How to correct income tax calculations

If the institution detects a counting error after withholding personal income tax, then the amounts withheld in excess can be set off against the employee's salary in subsequent payments (clause 3 of article 226 tax code RF).

If in previous months the tax was withheld and transferred in a larger amount, then it can be repaid in the current month, and the amount payable is reduced by the amount of the overpayment allowed earlier. Thus, the offset of the overpayment should be carried out automatically.

If the amount of the reversed personal income tax exceeds the accrued amount of tax on subsequent payments (for example, such a situation may arise upon dismissal), then the employee has an excessively withheld amount of tax. The tax agent is obliged to return it in the manner specified in paragraph 1 of Article 231 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation. Prerequisite - submission individual return requests.

The return to the taxpayer of the amount of tax withheld in excess shall be made at the expense of the amounts of this tax subject to transfer to budget system Russian Federation on account of future payments, both for the specified taxpayer and for other taxpayers, from whose income tax agent withholds such tax. The transfer is made within three months from the date of receipt by the institution of the relevant application of the employee. The institution has the right to reimbursement of overpaid personal income tax on the basis of the relevant application submitted to tax authority(letter dated January 14, 2009 No. 03-04-05-01/05).

Do I need to make changes to the RSV-1 PFR

The Ministry of Health and Social Development of Russia, in a letter dated May 28, 2010 No. 1376-19, clarified that the discovery in the current reporting (billing) period of the need to withhold from employees payments excessively accrued to them in previous reporting periods is not an error in calculating the base for calculating contributions. Since in each of the indicated periods (past and current), the basis for calculating insurance premiums is determined as the amount of payments and other remunerations accrued in favor of employees in this particular period.

Therefore, it is not necessary to make changes to the calculation of accrued and paid insurance premiums for past periods in the situations under consideration. That is, if some payments were included in the taxable base by mistake, for example, in the 1st quarter of the billing period, and this was discovered in the 2nd quarter of the same period, then it is necessary to take into account the error in the 2nd quarter, updated calculations for the 1st quarter do not need to be submitted. .

V. Duck,
budget accounting expert

Today we will dedicate the issue to the topic "counting error". In our first issue of the blog about the return of overpaid funds, we touched on this concept a little, now let's talk in more detail why this definition is important and in what case does it apply?

To do this, we recall that in accordance with paragraph 3 of part 1 of Art. 1109 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation are not refundable (i.e. withheld from a serviceman in case of overpayment) as unjust enrichment, wages (in our case, monetary allowance) and payments equivalent to it, in the absence of dishonesty on his part and counting error.

Thus, a counting error is one of the legal grounds.

So what is a counting error?

Everything is very simple - as the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation pointed out in the Ruling No. 59-B11-17 dated January 20, 2012, an error made in arithmetic operations should be considered a counting one. These are actions related to counting - when incorrect results are obtained when adding, subtracting, dividing, multiplying.

In addition, you should be aware that if an arithmetic error is made, then a Act on the discovery of a counting error. The act is drawn up, as a rule, in any form.

Due to the fact that now they are mainly used accounting programs, many of course have a question:

And what if the accountant incorrectly entered the data into the program, made a mistake. Is this related to counting error?

In fact, incorrect input of data into a program is called technical error. And as the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation pointed out, technical errors, including technical errors committed through the fault of the employer, are not countable. This means that due to a technical error, the employer will not be able to recover excessively overpaid amounts of money from wages.

The court also recognizes a technical error if it was caused by low qualifications, negligence of an accountant, since most of them work with programs that already have all the necessary formulas.

Along with a technical error, there may be technical failure of the program. If there is a technical failure in the program, then in order to confirm it, the employer must provide as evidence a report or conclusion of an IT specialist about problems in the program. The court equates the incorrect operation of the program with indisputable evidence to a counting error.

Thus, it must be understood that in the event of an overpayment and upon presentation of a demand from the PFI, SRC for the return of overcharged and paid monetary allowance, the deduction itself is allowed only if the serviceman voluntarily agrees. In the absence of such consent, the recovery of funds through the court should take place; in this case, the relevant body is obliged to prove the existence of guilty and dishonest actions on the part of the military personnel, or the presence of a counting error, including he will be obliged to submit to the military personnel, and subsequently to the court, the corresponding Discovery Report counting error.

In the event that such evidence is not available, there is a high probability that the court will refuse to satisfy the claim for withholding money from the serviceman.

All of the above is perfectly illustrated by the table given in our video, from which you can see what applies and what does not apply to the counting error.

Specially for Nachfin.ifo

military lawyer Marina Baydak