Source documents. Criteria for recognizing the reality of economic transactions.

Sometimes accountants are faced with a situation where the supplier did not provide any primary document or the received document contains certain shortcomings in mandatory requisites. Then the question arises: how critical is this?

Some buyers take the goods without powers of attorney (they have forgotten, they just did not take it) or they are asked to send the goods by New mail. Then it is very difficult to get them to send a power of attorney or return a signed invoice with a stamp. How critical is the absence of a power of attorney now, as well as the signature and seal on the bill of lading? Do I need a power of attorney if the goods were received personally by the director?

No power of attorney to receive goods and materials - how critical? To begin with, we recall that as from January 1, 2015 the form of the power of attorney for receiving goods and materials was canceled along with Instruction No. 991 regulating the procedure for its circulation. At the same time, in clause 2.5 of Regulation No. 882, the following norm was fixed:
1 Instruction on the procedure for registration of issued, returned and used powers of attorney to receive valuables, approved by Order of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine from 16.05.96 No. 99 (expired).

Provision on documentary provision of records in accounting, approved by Order of the Ministry of Finance of 24.05.95, No. 88.
"Authority ... a person who, in the interests of the enterprise / entrepreneur, receives fixed assets, inventories, intangible assets, monetary documents, securities and other inventories under the contract, are confirmed in accordance with the law. Such powers can be confirmed, in particular, by a written contract, power of attorney, an act of a legal entity, etc. "

That is, how exactly will the powers of individuals be confirmed when they receive goods and materials, the parties determine independently when concluding the contract. And for this, there need not be a power of attorney.
In practice, the lack of power of attorney control authorities can use as additional evidence of "unrealistic" (absence) of the transaction.
This is evidenced by the numerous judicial practice.

By the way, in the list of documents required to unlock the tax invoice (which, in fact, the payer submits in order to prove the reality of the hoso operation), the "powers of attorney, acts of the taxpayer's governing body that formalize the powers of persons purchasing products in the interests of the taxpayer" (clause 14 of Order No. 1173).
3 The procedure for suspending the registration of the tax invoice / calculation of the adjustment in the ERNN, approved by Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of February 21, 2018 № 117.

Although it should be noted that clinging to the lack of a power of attorney, fiscal officials are likely to be only if they still have some clues for not recognizing the operation.
It should be noted that the power of attorney itself is not a primary document. The power of attorney only fixes the decision of the authorized person (head) of the enterprise to authorize a specific individual to obtain for the enterprise a certain list and quantity of valuables. The very fact of the movement of these values ​​(i.e., the hoso-operation) does not fix the power of attorney.

Therefore, to recognize the lack of hosooperations only on the grounds that there is no power of attorney, tax authorities can not (because this is not even the primary document). A hozoperatsii in the record reflect on the basis of primary documents (Part 1, Article 9 of the Accounting Law). In addition, the main criterion for the existence of a hoso-operation is changes in assets and liabilities, the company's own capital (Article 1 of the Accounting Law).

The fact that the lack of a power of attorney can not deny the fact of the implementation of the hoso operation, drew attention to the MAT (Decree of the Supreme Armed Forces of Ukraine dated 29.04.2015 in case No. 3-77-154).
There is no signature of the recipient in the invoice, and there is no printing of the recipient enterprise - how critical is it?
Here it should be remembered that, according to Art. 9 of the Accounting Law, the primary document must contain, in particular, a personal signature and other data that enable the identification of the person who participated in the implementation of the operation 

and contain information on the date of drawing up the document, the name of the enterprise on behalf of which the document was drawn up, the content and volume of the business transaction, and so on.
As we see, the absence of the recipient's signature on the document is a "risky" shortcoming of the primary document. Although much depends on the fact that the inspectors will still have a clue to recognize the transaction as missing.
When recognizing a transaction as unreal, the tax authorities may not recognize the costs written off when selling the goods, the costs of delivering the goods + may still not recognize the tax credit from the buyer due to the fact that he does not have the fact of purchasing the goods.

After all, the presence or absence of primary documents, as well as errors in their design, is not the basis for the conclusion that there is no hoso operation, if from other data it follows that the actual movement of assets or changes in the payer's own capital or liabilities took place. In other words, the absence of the recipient's signature on the primary document in itself is not critical if the payer has other evidence that the goods were actually received by the buyer. For example, there are documents for the internal movement of goods, its delivery.

As for the lack of printing on a bill of lading, now the seal is not named among the mandatory requisites of the primary document. That is, its absence / presence absolutely does not affect the validity of the primary document. The main thing is the signature of the person who signed the document, and confirmation of his authority.
At the same time, considering again the fact that:
- confirmation of the operation is a movement in assets and liabilities, the company's own capital (Article 1 of the Accounting Law) and the fact that the absence of these or other documents is not the basis for the conclusion that there is no hosooperation, if it follows from other data that the actual movement of assets or changes in the payer's own capital or liabilities took place, then the reconciliation act may be an additional ) document in the confirmation of the performed hosoperatsii.