Are you late with the delivery of SZV-M? Find out how to avoid a fine

Instruction 1: they forgot to include the employee in SZV-M

If you forgot to include a person in the SZV-M, you should fill out an adjustment report form. To do this, take the usual form SZV-M, approved. Resolution of the Board of the Pension Fund of 01.02.2016 No. 83p, and fill it out as follows:

In sections 1 “Insured Details” and 2 “Reporting Period”, indicate the same data as in the original SZV-M, which needs to be supplemented if there were no errors in these sections of the original SZV-M.
In section 3 “Form type (code)”, enter the code “additional” - this means that the form is submitted to supplement the information about insured persons previously accepted by the Pension Fund for the reporting period.
In section 4 “Information about insured persons”, include information about the “forgotten” employee. There is no need to repeat information about other employees already reflected in the original SZV-M.

Give the completed adjustment SZV-M form to your manager for signature and then send it to the Pension Fund.

New fine for SZV-M report (additional)

The SZV-M reporting form comes in three types. The policyholder indicates them when drawing up the report in the “Form Type” field. In particular, the report can be:

The initial “output” is the initial data on employees for the reporting period.
Additional “additional” - if necessary, supplement the information previously specified in the original report sent to the Pension Fund.
О—if necessary, completely cancel the data previously specified in the report.

So, until now, policyholders could submit supplementary forms SZV-M (additional) even after the deadline for submitting the original report. In this case, they could avoid a penalty for errors if they forgot to indicate employees when filling out the initial version. Now, a fine can be avoided only if the supplementary SZV-M (additional) is sent to the Pension Fund before the deadline for submitting reports, that is, before the 15th day of the month following the reporting one. Consequently, errors in SZV-M have now become much more difficult to correct, and if one or more people are not included in the form, you can immediately tune in to the fine provided for errors. By the way, its amount is 500 rubles for each employee not included in the report or incorrectly indicated.

True, if all employees are listed, but an error was made in their data (full name, SNILS or INN), then at the request of the Pension Fund, it will be possible to clarify the data without a fine. Provided that the policyholder meets the 5 working days allotted to him for this.

Example and sample

We will show you how to use the instructions described in the previous section with an example.

The original SZV-M, prepared by the accountant of SpetsStroyka LLC for January 2020, contained information about 48 employees of the company. The report was submitted on 02/10/2020. After the SZV-M was accepted by the Pension Fund of Russia, the accountant discovered an inaccuracy in it - the report did not reflect the employee with whom the GPC agreement was in effect in January 2020.

What to do? There is an urgent need to adjust SZV-M for one employee.

In order to supplement the information of the original SZV-M for January with the missing information, the accountant prepared and sent to the Pension Fund the SZV-M report with the form type “additional”.

Section 4 of the adjustment report includes only the “forgotten” employee. Information about other employees does not need to be adjusted.

Look at the example of what the SZV-M adjustment looks like if you forgot one employee:

This is what the SZV-M adjustment looks like if you need to add an employee. How can I correct the error if the original SZV-M reflected extra data? We’ll talk about this further, but first let’s focus on another equally important question: will there be a fine for a forgotten employee?

Will there be a fine?

The first question that worries an employer when identifying errors in the original SZV-M: is it possible to add an employee by adjusting the SVZ-M without a penalty?

If you manage to submit to the Pension Fund the corrective SZV-M for the forgotten employee quickly, there will be no fine before the end of the deadline established by law for submitting the original SZV-M. Let us remind you that the SZV-M for the reporting month must be submitted to the Pension Fund no later than the 15th day of the month following the reporting month (clause 2.2 of Article 11 of Law No. 27-FZ dated 01.04.1996).

If the legal reporting deadlines have passed, you will have to fight off the fine in court. In any case, the Pension Fund of Russia will issue it to the company (500 rubles for each forgotten employee) and to its manager (300-500 rubles according to Article 15.33.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation).

The fund's specialists will only record the violation in the protocol, and the court will consider it (clause 4, part 5, article 28.3, part 1, article 23.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation). Moreover, it does not matter to the Pension Fund that the company independently identified and corrected the error (letter from the Pension Fund of March 28, 2018 No. 19-19/5602). The Fund believes that only information that has already been reflected in the original SZV-M can be adjusted without penalty. And a forgotten employee is a set of new data that was missing in the original report.

SZV-M supplementary form, fines

The policyholder has the right, if an error is identified in previously submitted individual information regarding the insured person, until the error is discovered by the territorial body of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, to independently submit to the territorial body of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation updated (corrected) information about this insured person for the reporting period in which this information are specified, and financial sanctions are not applied to such policyholder.

Order of the Ministry of Labor of Russia dated December 21, 2016 N 766n “On approval of the Instructions on the procedure for maintaining individual (personalized) records of information about insured persons” {ConsultantPlus}

The new Instruction with the rules for exemption from fines has only recently been in force (since 2020), and judicial practice has not yet developed. But there are already several court decisions in which <8>:

— the subject of consideration was the submission to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation of an additional SZV-M for employees who were forgotten to be indicated in the original SZV-M submitted on time for the periods of 2020. The Pension Fund of the Russian Federation imposed a fine, which the insurers disputed;

— as arguments for canceling the fine, the insurers referred, in particular, to paragraph 39 of the new Instruction No. 766n;

— the judges canceled the fine for submitting a supplementary SZV-M.

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<8> Resolution of the AS Far Eastern Military District dated April 10, 2017 N F03-924/2017; 11 AAS dated May 18, 2017 N A72-254/2017.

Article: Correcting errors in SZV-M (Elina L.A.) (“General Ledger”, 2020, N 15) {ConsultantPlus}

Question: In July 2020, the organization submitted to the Pension Fund information on the insured persons in the SZV-M form for June 2020 on time, but by mistake did not include information on all employees. After 07/17/2017, but before the discovery of this violation by the territorial body of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, the organization submitted to the Pension Fund the missing information (supplementary form SZV-M for June 2020). Does the Pension Fund of Russia have the right to fine an organization for failure to provide information within the prescribed period of 500 rubles? in relation to each insured person for whom information was not initially provided?

Answer: If an organization in July 2020 submitted to the Pension Fund on time information about insured persons in the SZV-M form for June 2020, but mistakenly included information not for all employees, but after July 17, 2017, but before When this violation was discovered by the territorial body of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, the missing information was submitted to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation (supplementing form SZV-M for June 2020), then, in our opinion, the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation does not have the right to fine the organization for failure to submit information within the prescribed period of 500 rubles. in relation to each insured person for whom information was not initially provided. However, based on judicial practice, the risk of prosecution exists, but the policyholder has a chance either to reduce the fine or to completely cancel the decision to bring liability...

According to Art. 15 of Law No. 27-FZ, the policyholder has the right to supplement and clarify the information transmitted to him about the insured persons in agreement with the relevant PFR body...

The insured has the right, if an error is identified in previously submitted individual information regarding the insured person, before the error is discovered by the territorial body of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, to independently submit to the territorial body of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation updated (corrected) information about this insured person for the reporting period in which this information is updated, and financial sanctions to do not apply to such policyholder.

According to arbitration practice, when submitting a supplementary form at the initiative of the policyholder, there are no legal grounds for bringing the policyholder to liability under Art. 17 of Law No. 27-FZ, since the insured is not at fault in connection with the exercise of his right to correct false information (Resolution of the Arbitration Court of the Far Eastern District of April 10, 2017 No. F03-924/2017 in case No. A16-1601/2016)…

Meanwhile, in the situation under consideration, it is impossible to exclude the risk of holding the insurer liable for late submission of information regarding employees, information on which was not included in the original SZV-M form. In this case, the insurer’s independent correction of an error can be taken into account as one of the mitigating circumstances when imposing a fine (Resolution of the Thirteenth Arbitration Court of Appeal dated 02.06.2017 N 13AP-8401/2017, 13AP-9199/2017 in case N A26-9551/2016) or the insured has a chance to generally have the decision to hold him liable (Resolution of the Sixth Arbitration Court of Appeal dated July 24, 2017 No. 06AP-3474/2017 in case No. A73-910/2017).

{Question: ...Does the Pension Fund have the right to hold an organization accountable if it submitted the supplementary SZV-M form after the deadline established for submitting the original form, but before the detection of a violation by the Pension Fund? (Expert Consultation, 2017) {ConsultantPlus}}

On liability for false information in the SZV-M form

Will there be liability for submitting false or incomplete information as part of the SZV-M form if the policyholder, having discovered the error on his own, submits an additional form to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation? ...

As practice has shown, the bodies of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation in the described situation (when the policyholder submits additional forms, having independently discovered errors in the original form), the policyholders are fined, but judges do not agree with this approach. The justification based on the example of the Resolution of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of April 10, 2017 N F03-924/2017 in case N A16-1601/2016 is as follows.

According to Art. 15 of Federal Law No. 27-FZ, the policyholder has the right to supplement and clarify the information transmitted to him about the insured persons in agreement with the relevant body of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation. According to the arbitrators, independent elimination of errors in information previously submitted in compliance with the established deadline is a circumstance confirming the absence of the insured’s fault. As a general rule, a formal approach to imposing a fine is unacceptable; any sanction must be applied taking into account a number of principles: guilt and wrongfulness of the act, proportionality of punishment, presumption of innocence.

The foregoing correlates with the explanations presented in the current Instructions on the procedure for maintaining individual (personalized) records of information about insured persons <1> (see paragraph 39).

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<1> Approved by Order of the Ministry of Labor of the Russian Federation dated December 21, 2016 N 766n.

Article: About the forms SZV-M and SZV-STAZH (Gerasimova N.V.) (“Public catering enterprises: accounting and taxation”, 2020, N 7) {ConsultantPlus}

If you discover the error yourself

If the employer discovers an error in the previously submitted individual information regarding an employee before the error is discovered by the Pension Fund, then an additional form with the correct information or a canceling form should be submitted for such employee. Regardless of when the corrected information was submitted (even after the deadline for submitting the SZV-M form), you will not be fined (clause 39 of the Instructions). True, this situation is difficult to imagine. After all, a software check in the Pension Fund consists of checking only three parameters: full name, SNILS and TIN. And if there is an error, the program will definitely find it.

If you forgot to indicate an employee in the original report and submitted a supplementary form for him later than the deadline for submitting information (later than the 15th day of the month following the reporting month), then most likely you will have to pay a fine. At least that’s what most FIU branches think. The position is, of course, controversial. Indeed, paragraph 39 of the Instructions does not specify which specific “insured persons” we are talking about: those for whom the original SZV-M forms have already been submitted or all of them. We can conclude that the “insured person” is any employee, even one for whom information has not yet been submitted.

Arbitrage practice. The arbitrators said that Art. 15 of Law No. 27-FZ gives the employer the right to supplement and clarify the information transmitted to him about the insured persons. So if the original SZV-M form is sent in a timely manner, and the supplementary form is sent at the initiative of the organization in connection with the independent identification of errors in previously submitted information, then there are no legal grounds for holding the organization liable. After all, the company exercised its right to correct inaccurate information (Resolution of the AS of the Far Eastern District dated April 10, 2017 N F03-924/2017).

However, when correcting an error, it is safer to meet the legally established deadlines for submitting the SZV-M form.

If you have received a decision to prosecute you for an offense under Art. 17 of Law N 27-FZ and do not agree with it, you have the right to appeal the decision within three months.

Article: How to clarify SZV-M (Kosulnikova M.) (“Tax accounting for an accountant”, 2020, N 11) {ConsultantPlus}

Chances of court cancellation of fines

In court, the chances of canceling the fine issued to the company are quite high. According to the judges, when the company itself found and corrected the error, financial sanctions cannot be imposed on it (decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated 02/08/2019 No. 301-KG18-24864).

A fine is also unlikely if the error was found by the Pension Fund of Russia specialists, and the company managed to submit the supplementary SZV-M form within 5 days after receiving the notification from the fund (Determination of the RF Armed Forces dated July 5, 2019 No. 308-ES19-975).

It is difficult to say how the courts will resolve such issues in the future - the Ministry of Labor has prepared a draft according to which the Pension Fund of Russia will legally fine employees if the supplementary SVZ-M was submitted after the deadline reporting date.

It will not be possible to cancel a fine issued to a manager even in court (Resolution of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated July 19, 2019 No. 16-AD19-5).

Find out even more about fines, including for SZV-M, from the materials:

“What is the penalty for failure to submit the SZV-M report?”;
“What is the fine for an LLC for operating without a cash register”;
“Amounts of fines for failure to submit tax reports.”

Instruction 2: remove the extra employee from SZV-M

If an extra employee is included in the SZV-M, an adjustment to the original SZV-M will also be required.

A similar situation is solved using the following algorithm:

Complete and send the SZV-M report to the Pension Fund, indicating the code “o. A report with such a code will mean that the original SZV-M contains unnecessary or erroneous information.
Take the data for sections 1 and 2 of the corrective form from the original SZV-M.
In section 4, duplicate only those information that turned out to be redundant/erroneous.

As a result of submitting the cancellation form SZV-M, the previously submitted data will be reset to zero (for those employees you indicate in section 4 of the adjustment SZV-M).

Let's show with an example how to fix SZV-M if an extra employee got into it.

The original SZV-M for March 2020, sent to the Pension Fund on April 15, 2020, mistakenly reflected information on two employees whose employment contracts were not valid in March 2020.

The extra employees in the SZV-M (March report) were discovered only in May - when registering the next SZV-M.

The accountant of SpetsStroyka LLC immediately completed the cancellation form SZV-M and sent it to the Pension Fund.

How to remove employees using the SZV-M adjustment, see the example:

You will find instructions for all occasions on our website:

“Military registration in an organization - step-by-step instructions 2020”;
“Step-by-step instructions for changing the general director in an LLC”;
“Instructions for filling out Form 12-F (nuances)”.

How to pass SZV-M without a fine

You can clarify SZV-M without a fine by submitting another reporting document to the fund. The main feature of the adjustment is reflected in section 3 of the form:

ADDITIONAL – when submitting a supplementary form. The code is used when an employee was forgotten to be indicated in a previously submitted report.
OTMN – when submitting a cancellation form. This code is used when it is necessary to cancel erroneous data on a specialist.

For example, on March 29, 2019, manager A.V. Karpov was fired from the organization. At the same time, the accountant mistakenly reflected this specialist in the original form for March. To remove an employee without a fine, an SZV-M adjustment is submitted for the same period with the OTMN type. At the same time, the document provides information only for the employee for whom erroneous data was provided.

Let's assume the situation is reversed. The employment contract with the employee was concluded on March 29, 2019. But the accountant forgot to include the new specialist in the report for March. It will help to add an employee without penalty by adjusting the SZV-M for March 2020. Form type - ADDITIONAL.

Results

The SZV-M form can be initial, supplementary or canceling. By correctly entering the form type code in section 3 and generating the correct (corrected, supplemented, subject to cancellation) personal information of employees in section 4, you can correct the information in the original report. If the Pension Fund decides to fine the employer for filing a corrective report, you can try to challenge it in court.

Sources:

Federal Law No. 27-FZ dated 04/01/1996 (as amended on 04/01/2019) “On individual (personalized) accounting in the compulsory pension insurance system”
Resolution of the Board of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation dated October 15, 2019 No. 519p “On approval of the Procedure for adjusting individual (personalized) accounting information and making clarifications (additions) to an individual personal account”
Order of the Ministry of Labor of Russia dated December 21, 2016 No. 766n “On approval of the Instructions on the procedure for maintaining individual (personalized) records of information about insured persons”

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