Accounting inspection What is it?

If you have or manage a company, then you are aware of the importance of carrying out an efficient management of accounting, not only for financial reasons, but also to respond to an accounting inspection that the official tax audit body requests.

What are accounting inspections?

Accounting inspections are procedures that seek to analyze the accuracy and veracity of a company’s accounting work and that it complies with the guidelines established by law.

This revision supervised by the State Tax Agency, DIAN, verifies tax returns, taxable facts and any type of administrative formality that is the competence of the tax authority.

Its main objective is to validate the consistency of the accounting data submitted by the taxpayer at the time of making its private tax liquidation.

According to the law, this supervision must be executed by an official with a degree of accountant from Colombia, who is authorized to carry out the inspection and validate it with his signature to be legal before the State.

It is important to specify that only for accounting inspections, DIAN requires the presence of a public accountant, for other diligences such as the verification of accounting and accounting book inspection is not necessary.

Although the regulations do not explicitly establish the figure of the accounting inspections, it can be carried out as long as the regulatory body determines to do it as part of an administrative act.

Accounting and tax inspections, is it the same?

No, it is not. The tax inspection is valid from various legally accepted media, including the taxpayer’s accounting documents and books without the need for a comprehensive review of accounting books, such as in the accounting inspections.

In addition, the company’s administration can assign any type of professional for the inspection without the intervention of a public accountant be required as it occurs in the accounting inspection.

Although the two pursue the same purpose, the object is different, since the tax inspection seeks, as explained by the law, “to verify the reality of the tax returns” to give certainty at the reason for the investigation.

Inspection process

Any official inspection has a protocol of procedures to be followed so that it is fulfilled in accordance with what reflected in the law.

To begin with, the tax services in Colombia inform the taxpayer about the visit and their respective reasons. Currently, since the beginning of the pandemic, virtual media is used, both to report the visit and to make the inspection.

After this formality, the officials, together with the accounting office in Bogotá of the company, initiate the inspection focusing on the following aspects:

• Verification of financial statements, its elements, recognition and measurement systems, and its supports.
• Application to taxpayers and / or third parties’ proof of registered economic facts.
• Request the presentation and examination of books, vouchers, and compulsory taxpayer documents subject to bookkeeping.
• All activities related to tax determination.
• Question taxpayers or third parties.
• Carry out audits to discover the omission of formal and substantial obligations.
• Checking the accuracy of tax returns.
• Delivery via electronics of all collections such as general accounting and financial statements required by the official body.

Not having the skills to efficiently respond to a procedure like this, we recommend you request the help of accounting counseling in Bogotá to organize your bookkeeping according to the laws in force.

This way, you can overcome any official inspection with success and maintain a healthy operation of administrative and accounting management aligned with existing legal resolutions and those that could appear in the future.