In business practice, sometimes it happens that the money goes to the wrong address or in a larger amount than is provided. In both cases, the company or individual entrepreneur must make efforts to return the erroneously transferred funds.
Why do organizations donate money to the wrong address?
There can be several reasons for such an unpleasant situation:
- Firstly, an error may occur in the details of the counterparty. Such inaccuracies can sneak into documents upon receipt by fax, which is associated with the specifics of this type of communication. The accountant may also be mistaken when typing a payment order. With electronic document management, such errors are very rare, since data can be immediately imported into a payment order.
- Secondly, a banking institution error may occur. Such cases are very rare, but there are.
- Thirdly, money can be transferred repeatedly already under the executed contract. Similar situations are not so rare. The reasons are many: starting from the carelessness of the accountant and ending with the counterparty deliberately issuing a repeated invoice.
- Finally, thirdly, there may be an intentional distortion of details in order for the funds to go to the address necessary for the attackers. This scheme involves fraud.
What steps should I take to get a refund?
The return of erroneously transferred funds will require some effort from the organization that made such a payment. Here is their sequence, which has been developed over the years:
- First, you should contact the bank that made the payment and try to cancel the transaction. This should be done by the chief accountant or a person who has the right to such communication with a banking institution.
- If the first item is not feasible, then you need to call the organization or individual entrepreneur whose address the money went to, warn that the transaction was mistaken, and ask for a refund without formalities.
- If on the other end of the wire they did not go for voluntary cooperation, an official letter should be prepared. In this appeal, it is necessary to clearly justify why the error occurred, and to convincingly ask that the money be returned. For a sample letter for the return of erroneously transferred funds, you can take an appeal to the tax inspectorate for the return or offset of excessively paid taxes. It should be borne in mind that this letter can then be used in legal proceedings, therefore it is advisable to bring arguments under the legislative framework.
- If a negative response is received to the letter or the appeal is generally ignored, you can begin preparations for arbitration.
Voluntary return
An organization that receives an erroneous payment may voluntarily and meekly return it. However, even with such an operation, she has tax risks. The fact is that the return of erroneously transferred funds with or without VAT varies significantly. For organizations on the main taxation system (including VAT), this operation must be carried out according to the documents and justified in order to remove the tax service’s suspicions of skimming with non-cash money.
The return of erroneously transferred funds in the simplified tax system is easier to do, since here the cash method is used in accounting, when the tax is paid only on funds representing income.
However, in both cases, one call from the affected company to justify the return will not be enough.Necessarily need a letter on paper or in electronic form. In the latter case, a digital signature is desirable.
Oral treatment usually manages to get by only in the event of a banking error. The facility operator will see where the inaccuracy is committed and eliminate it. Which way is their business.
Who can judge arguing?
If the request to return the finances did not take effect, you can begin the forced return of the erroneously transferred funds. Currently, in the Russian Federation, commercial organizations and individual entrepreneurs can only be judged by an arbitration court. You should write a statement of claim to the court at the place of registration of the applicant.
A whole set of documents is attached to the application, both originals and copies. The main thing is that there should be payment orders confirming the error, and a letter requesting a refund.
The Civil Code in article 1102 suggests the wording of how to arrange the return of mistakenly transferred funds through the filing of a claim. The lawsuit should refer to "Unjust enrichment" at the expense of another person. The reason for the error for judges will not be of decisive importance.
Recipient's liability for non-refund
The payee must remember: if the erroneous transfer of funds is delayed, you will have to pay interest on the use of extraneous money. The term of such use will begin to be counted from the moment when the recipient learned about the erroneous nature of the payment. If the exact moment cannot be determined, the judges will take into account the time when the counterparty should have known about such a transaction.
A more complicated case occurs when the money does not want to return at all. The process of withdrawing funds can then take a very protracted nature. True, however, it is still on the side of the victim, and the recipient may receive serious troubles in the form of well-grounded claims for lost profits. If fraud is proven, this is a matter for law enforcement.
What conclusions can be drawn from the mistakes made?
The return of erroneously transferred funds, as can be seen from the above material, is fraught with many problems and measures to solve them. The following measures should be advised:
- Carefully check the details of the counterparty, including using the services of the Federal Tax Service. If a payment order an inexperienced accountant fills out, the head of the department must check the document.
- Try to accept details only by e-mail to avoid inaccuracies in the reflection of data when transmitting documents by fax.
- Enter all the details of partners at once into the database, even if transactions were of a one-time nature.
- Transfer money in stages within one transaction only after reconciliation of the calculations in the previous stage.
The tips are simple, but they will help to avoid the listed troubles.
