From the moment when our economy began to develop in the direction of the market discipline such as financial law has gained great popularity. The economy is developing more and more, which led to the development of such a concept as financial responsibility.
Definition
The term appeared not so long ago, but is already actively used. This is due to the fact that budget and tax legislation is developing, which means that there should be norms that govern the issue.
What is financial responsibility? This is the name of the financial and legal norms that apply to the violator. If a person breaks the law, then property measures will be applied to him. Only state bodies have authority. Punishment is expressed as a fine or fine.
With financial responsibility, everything is more or less clear, now let's talk about a financial offense. All this needs to be known at least in order to understand what action they can punish.
An offense in the field of finance is an act that abhors the rules of financial law, for which a person will be liable.
Responsibility
In the financial sector, punishment is provided, which depends on the severity of the misconduct. That is, during the trial, the punishment will be imposed not only in accordance with the Tax Code, but also with other laws if the crime affects other legal sectors.
It should be noted that in financial law there are many nuances that affect the enforcement procedure. They differ from standard measures, therefore, they are considered highly specialized.
The Constitution says that establishing responsibility and measures of state coercion is possible only at the federal level.
It is important to understand that the types of financial responsibility do not cause only adverse consequences, they are also aimed at restoring the rights of the violator and compensating for the damage.
Signs
Before analyzing the types of financial responsibility, you need to understand the signs that define such a responsibility as legal.
So, the signs include:
- state guarantees;
- fixing in legal norms;
- implementation in a negative and positive form;
- the onset of adverse consequences for the offender;
- government interventions - coercion and persuasion;
- procedural form.
Since any rule of law is considered a kind of social norm, the responsibility can be negative and positive.
Positive is one that a person performs voluntarily. Every citizen of the state must fulfill his duties and enjoy the rights. In this case, everyone will have their own motivation. For example, one will be afraid of punishment and, for this reason, abide by the law, and the other only because he has high social responsibility. It turns out that positive responsibility is voluntary, but at the same time, the state can force a person to fulfill it. Any threats from the organs are only warning in nature and are aimed at ensuring that the person is aware of the incorrect behavior. Positive responsibility is a precursor to negative.
When a citizen violates legal norms, a negative responsibility ensues. For financial offenses, the state imposes punitive measures on the offender. Most often these are penalties. Financial responsibility implies a monetary relationship.
Most often, punishment involves the performance of legal obligations under duress. This happens because the state acts in accordance with the Constitution, namely, it establishes coercive measures if the law is not respected.
Negative liability forms
We have already explained what types of responsibilities are, let's now figure out in what form negative financial responsibility can overtake you.
There is countervailing liability and punitive. The first includes all remedial measures, and the second fines that impose on violators.
Who is responsible for financial misconduct? To understand this, it is enough to know its elements.
So, financial responsibility is:
- participants;
- their duties and rights;
- object of legal relations;
- actions of participants.
Who is involved?
Since the concept of financial responsibility says that it arises in a relationship between two parties. These parties are the state and the offender. The state is represented by a competent authority that has all the powers to apply punitive measures. The offender in this case is obligated, his rights and obligations are inextricably linked, from which financial responsibility is obtained.
The body has the right to apply measures of state law enforcement in relation to the offender. It is important to understand that this is considered not only a right, but also a duty. For this reason, even in a situation where a person ceases to violate norms, the state can still punish him.
The concept of financial responsibility implies the presence of an object of relations. It is the legal status of a person who has violated financial laws.
Implementation procedure
The procedural form of responsibility is divided into three stages:
- Occurrence.
- Evidence of violation and clarification of liability.
- Application.
What is the peculiarity of this form? The fact that disputes in the financial sphere are resolved in pre-trial order. That is, first an order is issued to eliminate the revealed violations, to suspend financing from the budget, and so on. For example, the tax service offers to voluntarily cover the amount of sanctions. If a person refuses, then it comes to court and money is forcibly collected. I would like to note that tax officers are obliged to offer a peaceful solution to the issue.
Since financial and legal liability allows for pre-trial consideration, procedural relations can be of two types: civil and financial.
Initially, the financial process comes into effect, it is thanks to it that confirmation of a financial violation is detected. From this moment, the proceedings on the case begin.
In case of refusal of voluntary execution of the requirements of the competent authority, the latter may sue. There, the case will already be considered in the framework of the civil process.
It is important to understand that liability for violation of financial legislation of a negative nature can only be if the following procedure has been followed: legal norm - offense - sanctions.
Functions
As in any other legal growth, financial responsibility is endowed with certain functions. The most important we will now consider.
- Penalty or punitive. The offender must be punished and held accountable.
- Warning. Cautions against the commission of new offenses not only the offender, but also those around him.
- Compensatory. Restores the violated right, compensates for the moral and material damage caused by man.
- Educational. Through punishment, the offender is brought up.
- Regulatory. Through this function, law is directed, because it is part of the regulation of financial relations.
- Security. Financial legal responsibility allows you to protect the legitimate interests of citizens, their freedoms, rights and property.
In order to have a result, it is necessary to observe several principles, which we will discuss below.
Principles
There are principles that must be followed in any process. For financial responsibility, they are as follows:
- Legality. Only the authorized body can be punished for violations, and there must be strong evidence of guilt. It is also obligatory to observe the order, the grounds. All this should be based precisely on the standards for financial law.
- Humanism. The punishment and application process can only be humane. That is, it is unlawful not to force a person to experience physical torment, to humiliate his dignity, to torture, even if he has violated the law.
- Responsibility for guilt. You can only punish the guilty person.
- Equality before the law. No matter what gender, age or social status a person is, before the law everyone is the same.
- The inevitability of punishment. According to this principle, no one can escape punishment.
Tax offense
If you look at financial liability reporting, you can see that it depends primarily on what offense was committed. Consider misconduct in the tax sphere.
Tax. It is considered intentional when a person realized the unlawfulness of his actions and allowed or wished for negative consequences to occur. An act can be considered perfect by negligence, if the violator did not understand what consequences he would entail. Nevertheless, the law implies that he should have thought about it.
Employees of the tax authority may turn to the court for help, but this must be done no later than six months after finding the violation. It is important that an act is drawn up that confirms the fact of a violation.
If the criminal case has been dismissed or refused, then the time period for submitting documents to the court is counted after receiving the relevant decision.
Violation of budget legislation
Financial law also covers this aspect. The budget offense is recognized as improper execution or non-fulfillment of budget approval, consideration of the latter and control over its implementation. The provision of financial responsibility should be provided by the competent authority, and for such an offense, the offender is subject to criminal or administrative penalties. It all depends on how serious the crime is.
The Budget Code prescribes measures of financial liability for an offense that can be applied to a person.
- Cost lock.
- Warning of improper exercise of authority.
- Withdrawal of budget funds.
- Fine.
- Suspension of operations on accounts in credit organizations.
- Accrual of interest.
Sometimes they simply stop providing financial assistance or reduce its size. Municipal or state guarantees may be voided. Such a punishment has a preventive form.
These are not all measures applied to offenders. The full list can be found in the Budget Code and federal laws.
In addition, there are still remedial measures. These include the withdrawal of budgetary funds if they are used for other purposes, refunds in situations where the return period has ended and so on. You can apply, for example, to enterprises of this kind of financial responsibility, or to individuals. In any case, this is done in order to compensate for the harm or loss that has been caused.
What is a fine?
We talked a lot about various measures, among which fines were often mentioned. This is called not only financial tax liability, but also its other types, levied for violation of the law. With regard to the financial sector, the fine in this context can be attributed to administrative punishment, because it is not in vain that all articles mentioning fines refer to the Code of Administrative Offenses. It turns out that in the Budget Code there are only instructions on the application of certain measures, but specific ones are not spelled out there.
To study the information in detail, just look at the Tax Code. It is there that you can find all the information about financial and tax liability. Note that by virtue of the legislation of our country, such liability becomes taxable, respectively, the offender is punished as prescribed in the Tax Code.
What is a penalty
Along with a fine, fines are applied to violators. The term is used to denote a penalty or compulsion to financial liability. It is important to understand that a penalty does not guarantee, unlike a fine, the violator's performance of his duties.
Penalties are calculated as a percentage of the amount at which disagreements arise. It is valid for a certain period and is charged for each overdue day. If a person has not fulfilled his obligations for the entire period, then the competent authorities shall impose a fine. The latter helps to recover losses that have arisen due to the delay of the time period.
Although not every violator fulfills his obligations to the state in financial law, when a penalty starts to drip, people think. Not everyone wants to pay much more, so there is a desire not to bring the situation to an increase in the amount.
By the way, except for fines and penalties, other coercive measures are not applied in other legal sectors.
To whom it applies
The laws of our country are designed in such a way that no one could escape responsibility. That is, the principle of equality also works here. You will have to answer for the actions of both the individual and the public educational organization or enterprise.
The main penalty is deducting funds from the bank account of violators. By the way, money can be debited from any other financial and credit institution with which the offender concluded an agreement.
Money that is withdrawn from the violator is returned to the budget at the appropriate level. This can be both a municipal and a federal budget. It is noteworthy that such injections mainly form the country's budget.
Financial authorities
Responsibility lies not only with individuals and enterprises, but also with municipal organizations, as well as authorized bodies.
For example, the tax authorities are responsible for the fact that the budget suffered losses by taxpayers. The law considers such a situation as inaction or unlawful actions of employees.
That is, if situations arise in which the employees of authorized bodies are to blame, for example, incorrectly collected taxes, then they are found guilty, and the money is returned to the injured person. Workers themselves are also punished in the manner prescribed by law.
This statement is spelled out in the Constitution and is strictly observed. In addition, an employee of the competent authority must know all the rules by which he acts. And we are talking not only about tax legislation, but also about administrative, constitutional, civil, criminal and labor.
In order to understand a situation where, in your opinion, the competent authority acted illegally, you can sue. All case materials will be studied, witnesses interviewed, after which the judge will make a decision.
Conclusion
As you can see, it’s quite dangerous to play games with the law, especially in finance. There are examples of people who successfully evade taxes and spend budget money, but this does not mean that they act correctly. Sooner or later, all violators will be punished, and it is at this moment that you will understand how wonderful it is to comply with the law.
Do not think that liability for financial crimes happens only in the form of fines and penalties. In practice, criminals often face criminal liability, and this is much more serious than a fine. There is a well-known phrase “pay taxes and sleep peacefully”, which you should adhere to.
We all want to live in a civilized state, which is guided only by the rule of law. Often people admire the situation in Europe, forgetting that everything depends on the mentality, and not on the government. In any European country, citizens pay taxes, and it does not occur to anyone to waste the allocated budget. But our compatriots consider themselves above this and only demand all the benefits of the government. To live well in the country, everything must be done according to the law. Moreover, it is necessary to do this first of all to ordinary people. Only in this way can we achieve what we want.