What is tax fraud?

Tax fraud is also an integral part of statement fraud, and its risks are as extensive as accounting statement fraud. How many bosses are racking their brains to reduce the tax burden and pay less taxes, and accountants do everything possible to show their talents in tax planning. However, we must see that the tax risks are extraordinary, and there are many people who have been punished, sentenced to prison and ruined for tax evasion.

On the ways of financial fraud in enterprises

Fraud has existed since ancient times, but since the 20th century, the impact of fraud on enterprises is similar to the "9. 1 1" World Trade Center bombing. Some first-class companies no longer exist, their executives are either sentenced or prosecuted, millions of investors have lost hundreds of billions of capital, and corporate fraud cases are still emerging. Enron, WorldCom, Tyco and Xerox appeared abroad, but what about China? Lantian, Yinguangxia, Kelon, Sanlu, etc. Are not weak. Fraud threatens the survival and development of enterprises and even social stability.

I. Fraud and corporate fraud

In essence, fraud is synonymous with theft, deception, lying, forgery and lack of honesty. On the surface, it is true. After the surface was uncovered, all the hidden fraud, corruption and lies were exposed. Fraud risk is the damage that may be caused by low vigilance against fraud and weak preventive measures. The risk of fraud is ever-present, ubiquitous and getting more and more serious. There are corrupt officials on the top, cheating on the bottom, and the pattern is constantly being refurbished. Fraud is really hard to prevent, which has become a great harm to people's survival and a hidden danger in building a harmonious society. We must work together with Qi Xin, strictly guard against and punish, and restore social peace.

The "corporate fraud" defined by the US Department of Justice contains the following legal provisions:

(1) The company falsified financial information. Including forging accounting entries, providing false transactions, artificially creating income fluctuations, fraudulently overestimating assets, profits and interests, or underestimating/concealing liabilities and losses, and evading legal supervision;

(2) Insider trading. Including internal transactions, kickbacks, improper use of company assets for personal gain, and any self-trading behavior that violates relevant personal income tax laws;

(3) Fraud related to illegal funds and hedge funds. Including delaying trading, not grasping part of the market in time, false net asset value and other fraud and fraud related to trading with funds or hedge funds;

(4) Obstruction of notarization, perjury, tampering with evidence, or other acts related to the above (1) to (3).

Second, the various manifestations of corporate financial fraud

In enterprise fraud, represented by financial fraud, there are senior management fraud, accounting fraud, employee fraud, non-employee fraud and so on.

(A) senior management fraud

There are many kinds of fraud in senior management. As far as an enterprise is concerned, the focus is on financial report fraud, tax fraud and product fraud.

1, false financial report

Falsification of financial reports is fatal to an enterprise, and in the worst case, it seriously affects society. As we all know, Enron, Xerox, WorldCom and Andersen all went bankrupt because of false financial reports, which caused hundreds of thousands of employees to lose their jobs, harmed thousands of investors in Qian Qian and even seriously damaged the capital market. President Bush also came to the rescue.

(1) Financial report fraud. From the perspective of foreign countries, financial report fraud emerges one after another, everywhere, and it is getting worse. Since the Enron incident in the United States, accounting fraud cases of Xerox, WorldCom and other big companies have occurred one after another. In 2007, it was found that Sanyo Electric, a Japanese electrical giant, deliberately falsely reported the losses of its subsidiaries of 65.438+09 billion yen to 50 billion yen in its annual financial report as of March 2004, and also concealed a large number of losses to be written off in the future, which was called "Enron Incident" in Japan by the media. The recent exposure of Dubai debt crisis is also a potential financial reporting fraud.

In China, fraud in financial reports has also been discovered in recent years. Take listed companies as an example: Yuanye Company inflated its profits by inflating sales revenue, concealing management expenses and speculating its own stocks, and inflated its profits by 222 million yuan. 1989 ~ 199 1 year's external statements show that the accumulated profit is 77.425 million yuan, and the actual accumulated loss is1445.75 million yuan. Falsely reported a profit of 222 million yuan.

Qiong Minyuan 1996 has a fictitious profit of 566 million yuan and a fictitious capital accumulation fund of 657 million yuan, so nearly 200 million yuan of capital investment and cooperative housing funds are recognized as income.

Before listing, Dongfang Boiler inflated its net profit by 654.38+0.23 billion yuan by adjusting its financial report. After listing, the income of 1996 was 65438+76 million yuan and the profit was 38 million yuan, which was transferred to 1997.

Shenyang Liming shares are even more varied. 1999 inflated assets by 89.96 million yuan, inflated liabilities by19.56 million yuan, inflated owners' equity by 70.4 million yuan, inflated main business income by1500,000 yuan (accounting for 37% of income), and inflated profits by other means.

Jinan Qingqi Motorcycle Co., Ltd. listed to protect the brand. In 2002, 2.7 billion yuan of bad debt provision was made for some long-term uncollectible accounts, and 6,543.803 billion yuan of bad debt provision was made for loan guarantees of affiliated companies in the form of "taking a big bath", which greatly reduced the profits of that year. By 2003, the bad debt reserve accrued in the previous year had been transferred back to 654.38+0.58 billion yuan, turning losses into profits in one fell swoop and realizing the plot of "protecting cards". It is not uncommon to use false accounts and invoices to evade state taxes.

(2) Factors of Financial Report Fraud michael young pointed out in Accounting Violation and Financial Fraud that financial report fraud is widespread in the real world. People are insatiable for financial information. It also points out six factors of financial report fraud: ① the motivation of fraud stems from dishonesty; ② The motivation of fraud stems from pressure; (3) Fraud starts with trivial matters; (4) Fraud starts from the grey area of accounting; (5) Fraud increases with time; 6 riding a tiger is difficult and cannot be corrected.

Once the fraud incident of reporting fraud is exposed, it will lead to stock price decline, constant litigation, reputation damage, criminal prosecution, accountant being arrested, and tens of thousands of shareholders losing their money.

2. Tax fraud

Tax fraud is also an integral part of statement fraud, and its risks are as extensive as accounting statement fraud. How many bosses are racking their brains to reduce the tax burden and pay less taxes, and accountants do everything possible to show their talents in tax planning. However, we must see that the tax risks are extraordinary, and there are many people who have been punished, sentenced to prison and ruined for tax evasion.

3. Product/service fraud

Enterprise fraud includes product fraud in addition to financial report fraud. Through the annual "3. 15" party, we can see that the losses it has caused to society cannot be underestimated. Baby milk powder produced by Sanlu Group in Shijiazhuang has caused melamine poisoning in hundreds of thousands of children, some of which lead to renal failure, some develop into renal insufficiency and cause lifelong damage, and some lead to death. Its boss has long known that it contains poison, and some employees have long advised their friends not to use Sanlu milk powder, but the factory still sells it in a deceptive way until it is exposed in large quantities. Finally, the enterprise went bankrupt, the boss went to jail, the employees suffered, and more than 300 thousand children suffered.

(B) Accounting fraud

The basis of financial report fraud is accounting fraud. Levitt pointed out that accounting has five tricks: huge write-off of restructuring expenses, creative acquisition of accounting, preparation of dessert boxes, abuse of the principle of accounting unimportant matters, and recognition of income in advance. Specifically, there are the following technologies:

Fabricate income. By falsely invoicing, overestimating the degree of completion and "generating income" out of nothing;

Confirm income in advance. Confirm the unearned income or unrealized income in advance;

Exaggerate one-time income. Overestimate the value of assets through asset transfer and falsely increase the income of enterprises;

Inventory inflation. Saying that other people's assets are their own, or making fictitious goods/materials out of nothing;

Adjust asset value. Adjust asset value by using impairment reserve and bad debt reserve;

Take advantage of time difference. Record the income/expenses that should be included in the next year in this year; Or on the contrary, the record in the next year should be included in the income/expenses of this year;

Do not recognize non-performing assets. Leave the unrecoverable payment for goods and defective products on the books;

Change the nature of charges. Convert capital expenditure into expense expenditure, or convert expense expenditure into capital expenditure;

:: Transfer of funds. Diversion of enterprise funds for other purposes;

Unrealized expenses. Paying a lot of expenses with fictitious fake company invoices;

Conceal debts. The debts and contingent liabilities of an enterprise are not reflected in the financial report.

Business combination. Adopting "purchase method" or "equity method" will produce different value results.

Consolidated report. By adjusting the scope of consolidation to change the "face" of statements, Enron's main accounting problem is whether SPE should be consolidated;

Accounting estimate. Abuse of accounting estimates to adjust asset depreciation methods and years;

Accounting measurement. Changing the accounting measurement method without authorization and adjusting the current profit and loss of the enterprise;

Intangible assets. Some enterprises have a high proportion of intangible assets and use pricing and amortization period to adjust profits;

Related party transactions. Transfer the profits or expenses of the enterprise by using the market cloak and change the financial report; ……

The main characteristics of these methods are the abuse of accounting options, loopholes in accounting standards, and the use of form over substance. Here, the "intelligence" of the accountant is very important. He can make the loss-making enterprises into "profit" statements; Companies that make money can also make "loss" statements. Just like a joke circulating in the society: the boss of the company interviewed for an accountant, and the topic was "1+ 1=?" The first candidate for accounting, the answer is "2". Asked the second accountant, he thought: the accountant must create more wealth for the boss before he can use you. After thinking about it, the answer is "3". When the third candidate applied for accounting, he walked up to the boss's ear and whispered, "How much did you say? How much is it? " The boss was overjoyed: good! I'll hire you. Although this is a joke, it has become a reality. The chairman of China Merchants Group publicly declared to Li He, deputy director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, the guests on the spot: "I was in Beijing for a meeting these two days, and those leaders of the company called me and asked me whether the profit this year was 65.438+0.7 billion, 65.438+0.8 billion or 2 billion? I said I'll go back and look at SASAC's assessment rules before I give you a decision. " Isn't this "the boss's profit and the director's cost?" . These people turn the scientific nature of accounting into magic and change accounting data at will. However, it should be noted that the more data is tampered with, the greater the potential risk and the greater the final pain.

(3) Employee fraud

There are also a lot of frauds among employees. According to the report of the Association of Registered Fraud Investigators in 2004, 92% of frauds involved misappropriation of enterprise assets, theft of cash, concealment of income and false expenditure. Among them, cash assets account for about 80%. Among the means and methods of fraud, the commonly used means is misappropriation of assets, which can be summarized as follows: internal cooperation. Employees of all departments of the enterprise and relevant personnel inside and outside the enterprise use their own "convenience" conditions to evade internal control and supervision of the enterprise, cheat in partnership, and jointly steal the company's assets to achieve the purpose of embezzlement.

Sneak through Chen Cang. Pretending to make trouble and hide people's eyes and ears, stealing corporate assets in a roundabout and transformed way.

Fish in troubled waters. The act of obtaining illegitimate interests by some means with the help of some sudden or chaotic situation.

False reporting and impersonation. Knowingly violating the current rules and regulations, resorting to fraud, falsely reporting expenses, soliciting funds, and taking materials for yourself.

Come out of thin air. Fabricating receipts and payments out of thin air, buying illegal fake invoices, compiling fake payrolls, fake contracts, changing fake sales returns, etc. , and committed fraud and corruption.

Zhang Guan Dai Li. Deliberately confusing account correspondence and mishandling economic business. For example, the interest paid by enterprises, originally operating loans, is included in capital expenditures, improving the profits of the year.

Inside job, stealing from yourself. Taking advantage of the position in charge of property, corruption and theft. If there is a warehouse manager, find some scrapped instruments and exchange the good instruments in the warehouse for sale.

Misappropriation not reported. For the enterprise's income, methods such as less selling price, no invoice or less invoice, and no receipt are adopted. , is adopted to directly devour the existing income.

* Damage the public interest for personal interests. Seek personal interests in the name or strength of the enterprise. For example, purchasing materials for enterprises, purchasing at high prices from classmates and friends, and taking kickbacks yourself.

Hide the sky from the sea. Hiding the truth of fraud in daily economic and business activities makes it difficult for people to doubt or discover, and even leads to payment errors, thus achieving the purpose of corruption.

Imitate the signature Imitate the signature of the relevant leaders of the enterprise, make the non-compliant documents muddle through, or get the goods from the warehouse. Achieve the purpose of stealing enterprise property.

Yin and Yang notes. Fill in different numbers on the front and back of invoices and documents respectively. Achieve the purpose of concealing income, expanding expenditure and obtaining more corrupt materials.

(4) Non-employee fraud

Although the risk of non-employee fraud occurs outside the enterprise, it also seriously harms the survival and development of the enterprise. There are mainly the following fraud tricks: Ponzi scheme, a plot planned by Italian speculator Charles Ponzi in the 20th century, to deceive people into investing in a non-existent enterprise. He promised that investors would get rich investment returns in a short time and lured many Bostonians to invest in his "incredible" investment projects. Pay a 50% return by cheating money. Soon the influence expanded rapidly, and those investors who had already got the rate of return put their money into the scam. Soon, Ponzi could absorb millions of dollars every day. Finally, he absorbed more than 20 million dollars. Among them, $6,543,805,000 is used to repay interest, and the remaining $5 million is used for personal consumption of him and his wife. After the scam was discovered, the court sentenced Ponzi to ten years in prison. He died penniless in Brazil. Now we call the scam that uses the funds of the follow-up investors as the early investment return "Ponzi scheme". Unfortunately, people have not learned from it, and the application of this scam is still very common.

Pyramid scam Now it's like pyramid selling. Members want to get the maximum profit, not by selling products, but by absorbing new "salespeople". This scam is usually used to promote household products and services. If you want to join such organizations, you usually have to pay some fees in advance, and the funds raised will be paid to the members who joined earlier. But in fact, no one is really engaged in product sales, but is constantly absorbing new members and maintaining the whole pyramid with the funds paid by new members. In the end, if not enough people join the scam, it will inevitably end in failure. This kind of fraud is extremely harmful to society and must be strictly guarded against.

"Fishing" scam. Refers to a scam conducted by an actor, who established a model of "instant payment for small orders". After several safe transactions, the victim no longer suspected. At this time, the subject of this behavior orders in large quantities. After the goods are delivered, the customer (that is, the subject of behavior) stops paying and runs away. A scam can also be designed in reverse. As a supplier, the actor first provides products with good quality and low price, but requires payment before delivery. After several small transactions, the buyer mistakenly thought that the supplier (actor) was an honest and reliable legal person. Once a big order is placed, the supplier will abscond with the money.

Payment scam. It is to say out of thin air that you "won the XX prize" or claim that you can help you transfer a lot of money from abroad. But if you want to get prizes or bonuses, you need to send thousands of dollars of personal tax or handling fees first. However, those victims who send money will definitely not get any prizes in the end.

Credit card fraud.

(1) card theft. He stole the cardholder's card, or copied or stole the password and took the money before the cardholder reported the loss.

(2) Credit card identity fraud. Credit cards are still held, but their information has been obtained by various means and used as an impostor to order goods online. All you need is the card number and expiration date.

(3) False return scam. Customers are the "God" of the company. When customers are dissatisfied with the company's goods or services, they will ask for a refund. In the absence of goods sales return, dishonest employees can forge a refund in the system and transfer the money to their credit cards. Therefore, it is necessary to check and analyze credit card refunds regularly.