I. The difference between accounting standards and tax law under accrual basis There are usually two bases for calculating enterprise income: one is accrual basis; The second is cash basis. Accounting standards emphasize accrual basis as the basis of accounting, aiming at making all accounting units. Correctly reflect the profitability of each accounting object, and provide true and fair accounting information. According to this requirement, the income of enterprise financial accounting includes the income of credit sales that has been delivered but not recovered (accounts receivable) and the losses that have been spent but not amortized (deferred expenses); Loans received by enterprises in advance are not included in the current income, but only when they are delivered, and the expenses paid by enterprises in the future can be accrued according to regulations. The income and expenses recognized in this way, even the profit and loss calculated from it, adhere to the accrual basis principle and meet the requirements of financial accounting. However, when the tax law applies the accrual basis, there are the following problems.
1. In enterprises with widespread credit sales and a large proportion of sales receivable, because the sales have been realized, according to the accrual principle, the tax obligation has occurred, the sales amount used for tax payment has not been recovered, and the actual tax payment ability has not yet been possessed, so the tax can only be distributed from the enterprise's own funds. If the enterprise's own funds are already very tight, it has to use bank loans to pay taxes in advance. Doing so, on the one hand, will increase the capital cost of enterprises and affect production and operation; On the other hand, loans are not easy to obtain and easy to obtain, which leads to huge tax arrears of some enterprises. This not only greatly dampened the enthusiasm of enterprises to pay taxes, but also affected the smooth progress of national tax work.
2. Accounting standards follow the accrual basis principle when calculating enterprise income (income from production and operation and other income), while tax law stipulates the measurement of income from production and operation and confirms the implementation of accrual basis principle, while other income (dividends, interest, rent, income from various asset transfers, royalties and non-operating income, etc.). ) Follow the cash basis principle. For example, the confirmation of interest income, asset income and royalties. All cash (including bills) will be recorded when received.
3. The input deduction of VAT is based on cash basis, that is, the payment of VAT is based on the sales of products to calculate the payable VAT output tax, after deducting the input tax paid for the purchase of raw materials, the actual tax payable in this period is calculated. Accounting adopts the accrual basis principle, and the raw materials purchased in the current period are not necessarily consumed in the product cost sold in the current period. Therefore, the value-added tax paid by an enterprise in each period is only the proportion of the sales income minus the input value-added tax for purchasing raw materials. This makes accounting information lack of comparability, thus weakening the reflection function of accounting information.
At present, tax laws all over the world adopt the accrual basis in financial accounting as the basis of tax accounting, which makes accounting standards basically consistent with tax laws in this respect, although there are some differences between accrual basis and accounting standards when they are applied to tax laws. When dealing with these differences, we should first consider the taxpayer's ability to pay, so that taxpayers can pay taxes when they have the most ability to pay; Secondly, to meet the needs of certainty, so that the actual realization of income and expenses has certainty; Finally, we must protect the government's fiscal revenue.
Second, the difference between accounting standards and tax law under the principle of prudence. Financial accounting must follow the principle of prudence while implementing the accrual basis principle. The principle of prudence requires that in accounting, in order to avoid blindly and optimistically determining income, possible losses and expenses should be reasonably confirmed. But "possibility" is a kind of predictive thing with certain subjective factors. Its standards may be too tight in the eyes of enterprises and too loose in the eyes of the state, thus causing disputes between the state and enterprises on material interests. In the dilemma between fiscal demand and maintaining the tax base, the legislature often focuses on fiscal revenue and ignores the requirement of prudence principle.
Accounting standards fully reflect the requirements of the principle of prudence, and stipulate that enterprises can make provision for bad debts, inventory depreciation, short-term investment depreciation, long-term investment impairment and entrusted loan impairment. Eight provisions for impairment, including those for construction in progress, fixed assets and intangible assets. Enterprises can compare ending inventory, short-term investment and long-term investment with the method of lower cost or market price. The book value and market price of entrusted loans, projects under construction, fixed assets and intangible assets, when the book value at the end of the period is higher than the market price, directly reflect the losses and reduce the taxable income; On the contrary, when the book value at the end of the period is lower than the market price, it is still priced at historical cost, and it is not necessary to reflect the current income, thus reducing the taxable income. The method of lower cost or market price reflects the maintenance of tax base and meets the requirements of the principle of prudence. The tax law only stipulates the provision for bad debts, but not the other seven provisions for impairment. For inventory, investment, fixed assets, intangible assets and other assets, the tax law stipulates that the cost of taxpayers' inventory, investment, fixed assets, intangible assets and other assets should follow the historical cost principle and adopt the historical cost method, and the book value of investment will not be adjusted regardless of its appreciation or depreciation at the end of the accounting period. If depreciation loss occurs, it must be deferred to the time of investment transfer.
In addition, the tax law also excludes the loss of operating property from the deduction. The tax law stipulates that: except for enterprises that are allowed to engage in credit business according to the provisions of the state, such as finance and insurance, if the money directly lent by other enterprises cannot be recovered due to the bankruptcy, closure or death of the debtor or cannot be recovered within the time limit, it shall not be deducted as property losses before tax. However, enterprises engage in credit business in order to obtain income. Since income is included in taxable income, their operating losses should also be allowed to be deducted before tax. If inter-enterprise lending is not allowed, violations can be punished according to financial regulations, not taxes. Usually, there is a standard or amount limit for fines, but not recognizing that pre-tax deduction is equal to unlimited fines may be contrary to the fine standard, or which is more important, which violates the essence of maintaining the tax base.
For a long time, the application of the principle of prudence will lead to the reduction of corporate profits, and the income distribution determined according to this will lead to the decline of fiscal revenue. The tax law has always held a negative attitude towards the principle of prudence. With the accounting reform and the integration with international practices, the principle of prudence is reflected everywhere in the newly promulgated accounting standards, and the tax law should also fully reflect the principle of prudence from the perspective of maintaining the tax base, such as the confirmation time of deduction items, the extraction ratio of bad debt reserves, and the actual expenses related to production and operation.
Third, the difference between accounting standards and tax law under the debit and credit bookkeeping method. Accounting standards stipulate that debit and credit bookkeeping method should be used for accounting. According to the principle of debit and credit bookkeeping, any economic activity will cause changes in accounting elements. However, its changing law is nothing more than the following three situations: first, the transformation of physical assets and creditor's rights; The second is the transformation of rights and responsibilities; Third, physical assets and rights and interests have changed. In particular, changes in assets and rights will cause changes in taxes. Due to the different accounting treatment methods of asset transactions and income transactions, the principle of debit and credit bookkeeping was not considered when formulating tax laws, resulting in different tax treatment results. For example, a real estate company in China established a new Sino-foreign joint venture with a foreign-funded enterprise. After the joint venture, the real estate changed from an asset to an equity. However, less than one year after the joint venture, China Real Estate Company withdrew its shares on the grounds of poor economic benefits of the joint venture. According to the provisions of the Law on Chinese-foreign Joint Ventures, if one party to the joint venture withdraws its shares, the other party to the joint venture has the preemptive right, so the foreign party purchased the Chinese rights and interests at the market price. According to China's current tax law, equity transactions do not need to pay any tax. Although the result of the above transaction is the transfer of property ownership, the form has changed from asset transaction to equity transaction, but in fact it has evaded the business tax, land value-added tax and deed tax that should be paid. It can be seen that taxpayers can use accounting methods to convert assets into capital first and then trade them, so as to achieve the purpose of tax avoidance.
4. Accounting Assumptions The differences between accounting standards and tax laws Accounting assumptions mainly include accounting entities, going concern, accounting stages and monetary measurement. The accounting treatment of enterprise income tax is based on all the income obtained by an accounting entity in a certain accounting period, and after deducting the reasonable expenses allowed by the tax law, it is calculated and levied according to a certain proportion of its net income. Therefore, when calculating income tax, it is based on two accounting assumptions, namely, the accounting entity assumption and the accounting staging assumption. However, due to the fact that China is in the process of economic system reform, a variety of business modes such as contracting operation and leasing operation coexist, and these business modes are not standardized, which will cause some problems in income tax calculation. First, the accounting entity is based on the enterprise legal person, and does not recognize the specific individual operators, while the enterprise income tax taxes the contractors, on the contrary, only recognizes the individual contractors and does not recognize the legal person; Second, when collecting income tax, the accounting period assumed by stages is the tax payment period, that is, the contracted operation period is the tax payment obligation period. Therefore, the employer pays taxes according to the accounting period and the contractor pays taxes according to the contract period. When the accounting period is inconsistent with the contract period, there will be contradictions.
Verb (verb's abbreviation) Differences between Accounting Standards and Tax Law under Debt Restructuring China's revised Accounting Standards for Business Enterprises-Debt Restructuring has greatly revised the accounting treatment of the original debt restructuring standards, that is, the debtor no longer counts the difference between the payment amount of the debt and the book value of the restructured debt into the current profit and loss, but directly recognizes it as capital reserve. At the same time, creditors are required to account for the transferred non-cash assets or equity according to the book value of the restructured creditor's rights. This accounting treatment of debt restructuring income in the new standards can prevent enterprises from using debt restructuring to whitewash their performance and avoid customs parties from using debt restructuring transactions to manipulate profits, which fully embodies the principle of accounting conservatism. But for debt, no matter what kind of debt treatment is adopted, as long as the price paid for debt repayment is lower than the book value of debt restructuring, the debtor will get some benefits from debt restructuring, which is objective. In essence, the income generated by asset exchange should be included in the taxable income of enterprises according to the current tax law, and the enterprise income tax should be calculated and paid. However, the new standard directly recognizes the full amount of debt restructuring income as capital reserve, which does not conform to the relevant provisions of the current tax law and will lead to the loss of national tax revenue.
In order to truly and objectively reflect the taxable situation of enterprises, it should be handled according to the income from debt restructuring and the positive and negative taxable income calculated by enterprise income tax accounting. For the part that should be included in the capital reserve according to the new standards, the income tax payable can be calculated according to the tax payable of the enterprise, and the transition can be made through the subject of "deferred income tax-income tax payable on restructuring gains". When accounting treatment is carried out on the reorganization day, the taxable amount of debt restructuring income is calculated according to the taxable amount of enterprise income tax, which is temporarily included in the subject of "deferred income tax-income tax payable for restructuring income". At the end of the period, whether to transfer to "tax payable" or "capital reserve" is judged according to the positive or negative taxable income of enterprise income tax accounting. If the taxable income calculated by the enterprise according to the income tax accounting is positive, it will be directly transferred from "deferred income tax-income tax payable from restructuring income" to "tax payable-enterprise income tax payable"; If the taxable income calculated by the enterprise according to the income tax accounting is negative, the amount calculated according to the following formula will be treated according to different situations: the ending balance of "deferred income tax-income tax payable for restructuring" divided by the enterprise income tax rate+taxable income calculated according to the income tax accounting. If the amount calculated according to the above formula is less than or equal to zero, it will be directly transferred from "deferred income tax-income tax payable from restructuring income" to "capital reserve"; If the calculated amount is greater than zero, the product of the calculated amount and the income tax rate will be transferred from "deferred tax-income tax payable from reorganization income" to "enterprise income tax payable", and the calculated balance of "deferred tax-income tax payable from reorganization income" will be transferred to the capital reserve account. Because the debt restructuring income in the interim financial report of an enterprise has been reflected in the owner's equity and directly entered the net assets of the enterprise, this has greatly changed the internal structure of the net assets and net assets in the interim financial report of the enterprise.
The difference between accounting standards and tax law in enterprise restructuring, merger and reorganization; enterprise restructuring, merger and reorganization must evaluate the assets of the enterprise and confirm its value according to the evaluation and appreciation. Accounting standards stipulate that the restructuring, merger and reorganization of enterprises shall be confirmed and measured by evaluation value. According to the provisions of enterprise income tax laws and regulations, the income obtained by taxpayers from transferring and selling assets should be incorporated into taxable income and enterprise income tax should be paid according to law. From the tax point of view, the exchange of physical assets for equity should be divided into two kinds of transactions: asset transfer and investment. Reorganization activities needed to encourage the normal operation of enterprises (including reorganization of enterprises into joint stock limited companies, merger of enterprises, division of enterprises, etc.) ), in order not to increase the tax burden of enterprise restructuring, but also to prevent enterprises from concealing the transfer of value-added assets in the name of restructuring to avoid paying enterprise income tax, the relevant documents of the Ministry of Finance of People's Republic of China (PRC) and State Taxation Administration of The People's Republic of China stipulate that the transfer of assets involved in enterprise restructuring activities will not be confirmed and enterprise income tax will not be paid; An enterprise that accepts assets shall not determine its taxable cost based on the confirmed value; If the enterprise has adjusted the cost of related assets and accrued depreciation or amortization expenses according to the appraised value, it must make tax adjustment when handling tax declaration.
Transferring the ownership of assets to a joint stock limited company does not conform to the provisions of the Provisional Regulations on Enterprise Income Tax, nor does it conform to the provisions of relevant state financial and accounting laws and regulations.
1. Article 1 of the Provisional Regulations on Enterprise Income Tax stipulates that enterprise income tax shall be paid on the income from production, operation and other income of an enterprise. Its spirit is "who gets, who owns, who pays taxes". When an enterprise is reorganized into a joint stock limited company, all or part of its assets are evaluated and converted into shares according to the evaluated value. Obviously, this part of asset appreciation is the income of the original enterprise, which should be incorporated into the taxable income of the enterprise in the current year and pay enterprise income tax according to law. If the realized income is not confirmed, the income tax will not be paid, which is not in line with the basic spirit of the income tax law. If it was a state-owned enterprise before the reorganization, the property right belongs to the state, and the state-owned enterprise before the reorganization no longer exists after the reorganization, and the state becomes a shareholder (state share) of a joint stock limited company, it can be understood that all the asset appreciation is handed over to the state, and then the state invests in the joint stock limited company. The tax law stipulates that "the net income from the transfer of state-owned assets, which has been turned over to the state in full in accordance with the relevant provisions of the state, is not included in the taxable income". In addition, everyone should pay income tax according to law for the appreciation of their assets. If the reorganized enterprise loses money, it shall make up for the loss. Because the restructured enterprise only puts the assessed value of some assets into the new enterprise, the original enterprise continues to exist and fulfill its tax obligations.
2. If the restructured enterprise does not recognize the realized income, no income tax will be levied; A restructured joint stock limited company shall not confirm and adjust the cost of related assets according to the value after evaluation and confirmation. On the surface, this provision of the tax law seems fair and reasonable, and the original value is flat, which does not involve income tax. However, this treatment has brought difficulties to the accounting treatment of the reorganized joint stock limited company. The technical personnel's assets are converted into shares according to the appraisal value confirmed by the relevant departments, which reflects the shareholders' rights and interests, but are accounted for according to the original value before the appraisal. What about the value-added part? If the value-added part is included in the cost of assets and depreciation or amortization expenses are accrued, tax adjustment must be made, which will cause contradictions among shareholders. It is reasonable to convert physical assets into share capital, and the income tax is withheld and remitted by the joint stock limited company. But this way is unwilling to be chosen by the owner of asset appreciation (that is, the enterprise before reorganization). The author believes that enterprise reorganization involves asset transfer and asset investment. If the assets are evaluated for appreciation or impairment, the accounts of the reorganized enterprise should be adjusted to increase or decrease assets, and at the same time, the non-operating income or expenditure should be increased, which should be included in the profits and losses of the enterprise in the current year, and the enterprise income tax should be paid or the losses of the enterprise should be made up. The transfer or investment of its assets shall be handled in accordance with the normal accounting system. The recipient should not bear the tax burden of the assets transferred or absorbed by the investment, but should pay the tax on the value-added income of the enterprise before the reorganization.
Seven. The difference between accounting standards and tax law under non-monetary transactions. Accounting standards stipulate that the valuation method of non-monetary transactions is based on the book value of exchange assets, not on fair value. Non-monetary transactions turn substantial commodity transactions into non-monetary transactions, which reduces the national tax revenue, but the tax law does not make corresponding provisions on this. The income obtained from this exchange is a special form of income, and tax accounting needs to adopt special methods to confirm and measure it.
Under normal circumstances, when the object of non-monetary transactions is goods or services, it should be recognized as sales behavior. When exchanging goods or delivering goods, on the one hand, issue a unified invoice according to the market price and deliver it to the other party for signature; On the other hand, you should ask the other party for a uniform invoice for substitution as proof of income entry. However, not all barter objects are commodities. For specific business purposes, enterprises sometimes exchange assets with other enterprises or units and need to pay taxes separately, such as land value-added tax on real estate exchange and transfer; There is no need to pay taxes separately, such as machinery and equipment. Although this barter exchange is different from the sale of goods in nature, it affects the calculation of taxable income because of the difference in exchange value in the current period and future depreciation. At the time of exchange, a unified invoice must be given and obtained separately. The accounting treatment and value determination of barter depends on whether the exchanged items are related to the sales business. If the exchange has nothing to do with the sales business of both parties, because there is no actual realization process, a unified invoice can be issued according to the book balance, and the value difference generated by the exchange is treated as non-operating profit and loss. If one party participates in the sales business and the other party does not, based on the requirements of the matching principle, a unified invoice will be issued according to the market price of the exchange and recorded as sales income. The difference arising from exchange belongs to sales profit and loss; Although the other party does not constitute a sales business, in order to reflect fairness, it should also issue a unified invoice at the market price, and the difference between its book value and exchange value should be included in non-operating profits and losses. If goods are discounted to offset labor remuneration in exchange, one party uses goods to offset expenses, and the other party exchanges business income for goods, which is different from barter. If raw materials are exchanged for a certain proportion of finished products, the reduced price should be regarded as manufacturing expenses, that is, processing expenses, which should constitute the cost of finished products, and the other party should regard this difference as processing income and should not be confused with general barter exchange. Commodities are different from barter. If raw materials are exchanged for a certain proportion of finished products, the reduced price should be regarded as manufacturing expenses, that is, processing expenses, which should constitute the cost of finished products, and the other party should regard this difference as processing income and should not be confused with general barter exchange.