The main purpose of accounting is to comprehensively, truly and accurately reflect the financial status, operating results and changes in financial status of enterprises to managers, investors, creditors and potential investors. Therefore, accounting should follow the principles of objectivity, substance over form and prudence, and pay attention to the realization of income substance, not just the legal realization of income.
The purpose of tax law is to measure the economic income obtained by paying taxes in a certain period of time, so as to levy a certain amount of tax to ensure the national financial income and meet the needs of the government to realize its economic and social functions. Therefore, the collection of tax should follow the principle of legality and the principle of ensuring income, and pay attention to defining and accurately calculating the tax basis of tax payable. Specifically:
(1) Although the accounting system and tax law follow the matching principle in income accounting, they are different. The former is to confirm the proportion of income and cost from the perspective of accurately reflecting the operating results and financial situation of the enterprise, including the proportion of objects, the proportion of periods and the proportion of periods. The latter stipulates the relevant costs, expenses and losses from the perspective of protecting the tax base and fair tax burden.
(2) Accounting emphasizes the principle of the importance of income, while the tax law does not recognize the principle of the importance of accounting. As long as it is taxable income, regardless of whether its business matters are important or not, and regardless of the amount involved, taxable income and taxable income shall be calculated according to the provisions of the tax law.
(3) When dealing with some income, accounting should usually give full consideration to the potential obligations that these income will bear in the future, so as to ensure that it can accurately reflect the real long-term profitability of an entity. However, the tax law, especially the income tax law, generally does not consider the taxpayer's potential liability possibility, and the taxpayer's business risk is not borne by the state. As long as the taxpayer has control over the profit or potential profit, the tax law will confirm the taxpayer's income. Of course, sometimes the tax law will limit or postpone the recognition of income and the recognition of income time according to the needs of social and economic policies.
2. Differences in revenue recognition conditions
According to the enterprise accounting system, the basic conditions for determining income include the possibility of inflow of economic benefits and the reliability of income measurement. The basic conditions for determining taxable income in tax law are based on whether the legal requirements for the completion of economic transactions are available or not, and whether the exchange value is obtained, emphasizing the issuance of goods and services, and at the same time receiving the price or asking for the evidence of the price.
3. Accounting income is different from taxable income by tax.
In order to facilitate the comparison of accounting information in different industries, the enterprise accounting system divides accounting income according to the nature of economic business, including main business income, other business income, non-operating income, investment income and subsidy income. However, the taxable income and accounting income of each turnover tax and income tax are asymmetric, and the main business income of different enterprises will involve taxable income of different taxes. For example, the main business income of industrial enterprises and transportation enterprises will pay value-added tax and business tax respectively. Therefore, when an enterprise conducts accounting, it confirms and measures accounting income according to accounting classification, and when paying taxes, it pays taxes according to the provisions of taxable income of various taxes.
4. Different scope of revenue recognition
The enterprise accounting system puts forward clear recognition standards for the income from selling goods, providing labor services and transferring the right to use assets. According to the tax law, an enterprise should confirm the realization of income when it issues goods and provides services, and at the same time collects the price or obtains the credentials for collecting the price. It can be seen that the income range recognized by the tax law is greater than that recognized by the accounting system. Taxable income recognized by the tax law includes not only accounting income, but also extra-price expenses and deemed sales that do not make income in accounting. The provisions of the tax law are mainly for the needs of fair tax burden and collection and management. For example, in order to balance the tax burden of value-added tax on purchased goods and self-made goods, the value-added tax regulations stipulate that taxpayers who use self-made goods for projects under construction, employee welfare, etc., should levy value-added tax as sales. For example, in the case of chain-type taxation of value-added tax, because the value-added tax is taxed step by step, and the input tax is deducted by the value-added tax invoice, in order to ensure the continuity and integrity of the chain, it is necessary to levy value-added tax on the acts of entrusting others to sell on a commission basis and sell goods on a commission basis's accounting failure to make income, which is regarded as sales.
5. Different time of revenue recognition
The accounting system stipulates that as long as the conditions for revenue recognition in accounting are met, revenue will be recognized in the current period. Tax law generally reflects the confirmation of taxable income in tax returns, and makes different provisions on the time of taxable income. Value-added tax, business tax, consumption tax and enterprise income tax all stipulate the confirmation time of taxable income respectively. At the same time, under the same tax, the recognition of taxable income should also distinguish between different transaction properties. If the taxpayer also sells goods in advance, the time to confirm the income of value-added tax and consumption tax is the day when the goods or taxable consumer goods are issued; When the business tax sells real estate by means of advance payment, the income is recognized on the day when the advance payment is received. For another example, as far as value-added tax is concerned, goods are sold by way of entrusted bank collection and installment collection, and the time of income recognition is: the former is the day when the goods are sent out and the collection procedures are completed, and the latter is the day when the collection date is agreed in the contract.