How to avoid company audit by a bank as required by 115-FZ

Lately, certain organizations risk to attract attention of governmental authorities that are responsible for compliance of the Federal Law № 115 ” On Countering the Legalization (Laundering) of Criminally Obtained Incomes and the Financing of Terrorism “. This law, enacted over 20 years ago, has become a serious problem for entrepreneurs in the last few years. In 2016, the practice of application of this law changed sharply, affecting various areas of operations, including cash-out and the use of tax schemes.

Once the bank in which you have an account suspects a transaction on your account, it has the right to block the transaction until it has considered your arguments and found them convincing. Often, once a transaction is blocked, access to online banking or even the entire account is blocked, which can be a serious problem.

Once an account has been blocked, it will be difficult to open a new account with another bank or register a new legal entity.

Banks can initiate a 115-FZ audit of a company when they become suspicious if:

• Zero salary for the CEO. If the CEO does not receive a paycheck, but the account receives payments and has debits;
• Inactive account. Banks believe that the right entrepreneur must necessarily use the account at least once every three months;
• Lack of tax payments. An account that is not used to pay taxes or the tax deductions from which look suspiciously small;
• Ten-thousand authorized capital. Standard 10 thousand rubles in the column “authorized capital”
• Artificially low personal income tax. The bank pays special attention to these figures;
• Combined positions. Let’s assume that the director and accountant – one and the same person. And if it is also a founder – it will look very suspicious for the bank;
• The legal address is massive;
• A surge of financial activity. Especially if the founder or the name of the organization has changed the day before;
• Transit operations. The same amount came in the morning and went out in the evening, and so on every second day of every month.

Which cash transactions are under special control of banks

There are certain signs that may raise the bank’s suspicions about the reliability of the client and possible violation of FZ-115. These signs include:

• Frequent cash withdrawals from the account;
• More than one third of the weekly turnover is withdrawn in cash;
• Registration of a legal entity less than 24 months ago;
• Cash withdrawals occur at the beginning or end of the banking day;
• Counterparties whose accounts receive funds are considered unreliable bankers;
• The amounts of cash receipts and cash withdrawals are slightly less than 600 thousand rubles.

How to avoid 115-FZ compliance problems. 9 recommendations:

• The organization has a history of activity. It is important that the firm regularly conducts transactions to sell, buy, produce goods or services. This allows you to notice the traces of business processes.
• Availability of staff. Although there are companies with a limited number of employees, having staff is considered an important attribute of real business operations and not just on paper.
• The organization has expenses other than taxes such as rent of premises, telephone, internet, utilities, office supplies and other operating expenses.
• It often happens that a company has accounts in different banks at the same time. In this case, it is recommended to make payments on the listed items from each account, which will allow all banks to see that the organization is actively functioning.
• Cash withdrawals did not exceed thirty percent . Sometimes it is necessary to withdraw small amounts of cash. Cash expenditures are necessary for the actual operation of the business, so it is important to show the activity of the structure.
• It is important to keep the account active by making regular transactions and to have multiple counterparties, at least a few but not one.
• It is necessary to ensure that the account operations correspond to the declared types of activities according to OKVED, as inconsistency may attract the attention of regulatory authorities. It is important to inform the bank of changes in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities in a timely manner.
• You need to respond promptly to bank inquiries to demonstrate transparency and openness. Prompt responses to questions and requests will help the bank to see that you are not hiding information.
• Counterparty verification is a mandatory procedure. Even if you comply with the rest of the rules, one suspicious counterparty can cause serious damage to your organization.

Any new organization would be better served by keeping these points in mind to avoid being blocked from accessing the bank, accounts and conducting a bank check during which time no payments can be made.