Accounting for advertising on social networks. How to take into account advertising that is given on social networks

Updated 05/16/2017

FAS Russia explained how to apply the law on advertising on the Internet

Sources in the regional OFAS report that the center insists on special control over advertising distributed on the Internet, despite the lack of personnel who know the specifics of the Internet and the workload of others offline.

Apparently in this regard, the FAS Russia, as part of providing methodological assistance, sent to regional departments its explanations on the specifics of applying legislation when placing advertising on the Internet information and telecommunications network (letter of the FAS Russia dated August 28, 2015 No. AK/45828/15 “On advertising on the Internet). Despite its apparent simplicity, some points require comment.

This is not advertising on the Internet:

Information about manufactured or sold goods posted on the manufacturer's website or the seller of goods or on pages on social networks, if the specified information is intended to inform visitors of the website or page on the social network about the goods sold, assortment, rules of use (alcohol companies can breathe easy - they can publish assortment and other information on their websites).

Examples:

a company selling household goods places on its website a catalog, photos of goods, their description and price - the Law “On Advertising” does not apply to this information;
the same company places its banner on another website - the Law “On Advertising” applies to both the advertiser and the advertising distributor.

Information about discounts or ongoing promotions posted on aggregator sites(on sites where various coupons or tickets are accumulated and offered, allowing you to purchase goods at a discount).

Examples: discount sites, couponers.

This is a very controversial position. Following this logic, specialized offline advertising publications should also be excluded from the scope of the Advertising Law.

Most likely, the commission, having received a complaint about a violation of advertising legislation in the information presented on such a site, will nevertheless consider it on its merits, identifying a specific advertiser and holding him accountable. And the aggregator site, as follows from the explanations of the FAS, will not be responsible for inappropriate advertising (for example, if the declared discount on a product is not true).

Search results are not advertising and are not regulated by advertising legislation, because such information is the result of processing a user’s search request and is not aimed at generating and maintaining interest in any product.

Is advertising on the Internet:

information on the advertiser’s website or in its social group. network aimed at attracting special attention to specific product and its selection among similar products (for example, a pop-up banner);
contextual advertising (Yandex.Direct and similar).

FAS goes online

It would be useful to remind you how the FAS will identify inappropriate advertising on the Internet. These may be measures to systematically monitor information on Internet resources, requests from citizens and interested parties (most often competitors), public organizations and other control departments (with interdepartmental cooperation, for example, with Roskomnadzor). In general, the same thing happens offline. The fundamental difference is only in the methods of recording the facts of advertising placement.

FAS employees have the right to record facts of advertising detection by any means, for example:

site inspection report;
print screens (FAS terminology) of website pages;
Internet Archive (archive.org/web/).

In general, the list of fixation methods is not limited; even a photograph of a monitor with an open web page will be enough. And, yes, the FAS knows about the Internet archive 😎.

Problems of regulating advertising on the Internet

At the end of 2015, Roskomnadzor put forward an initiative to specially regulate targeted advertising since personal data is used to display it.

The FAS, in turn, noted that it does not see any special problem in contextual advertising that requires special legislative regulation.

At the same time, there are certain problems associated with the peculiarities of the distribution of advertising on the Internet.

As you know, contextual advertising is shown to the user depending on his online behavior. And more and more often there are complaints that contextual advertising is being pursued everywhere. Moreover, such advertising can be shown even in cases where the user did not take any obvious actions to identify his preferences (for example, he did not look for a certain product in a search engine, but discussed it with friends in private correspondence).

Given the ubiquity of smartphones and other smart gadgets, some experts believe that apps installed on them gain access to the microphone (or camera) and hear users' conversations. This personal information may then be sold to advertisers and used for targeting.

At the same time, not all users want to share their private lives. Therefore, I believe that government agencies will continue to work in the legislative regulation of advertising on the Internet in this direction. Moreover, certain steps have already been taken.

Thus, Article 18.1 of the Federal Law “On Personal Data” provides for the obligation of the operator collecting personal data using the Internet to publish its policy for processing personal data. And from July 1, 2017, fines for unlawful processing of personal data will increase.

I assume that the next step may be to determine the responsibility of the advertiser for the use of personal data for the purpose of displaying contextual targeted advertising on the Internet.

conclusions

As for liability for inappropriate advertising, fines for “online errors” will not increase. Also, advertisers remain responsible for any violations of the Law “On Advertising,” and advertising distributors and advertising producers only in cases expressly provided for by law.

Be careful! With its explanation, the FAS made it clear that the advertising market on the Internet is already under its control.

Due to the explosive growth of interest in the Internet and, in particular, social networks, advertising is becoming increasingly attractive. However, many accountants are afraid to indicate this item in the expense item, since they do not clearly understand what documents are required to confirm expenses.

We take into account costs

The number of users of social networks is constantly increasing, since anyone who has passed the simplest registration can use them. Placing banner ads on social media pages is popular and effective. But it is impossible to predict in advance exactly who will see such an ad. Therefore, it can be considered as an advertisement aimed at a wide range of people. According to subparagraph 28, paragraph 1 and paragraph 4 of Article 28 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, expenses for it can be taken into account without standardization.

But many other features arise when taking advertising into account. For example, Facebook and some other social networks do not have their own representative office in the Russian Federation. When purchasing advertising space in such a company, the company does not pay income taxes for a non-resident, but for VAT it remains a tax agent.

You need to carefully review the contract, and if it does not provide for VAT, you should add it on top of the price and pay it to the budget, along with payment for the service (see Tax Code of the Russian Federation - subclause 4, clause 1, article 148 and clause 4 of art. 174).

We confirm expenses

Advertising is placed on social networks through the employee’s account. And the employee himself provides an advance report and attaches documents confirming payment to it. In this case, it is necessary to take into account that the agreement and all acts to it are drawn up in electronic form.

- Agreement. In social networks, it is customary to conclude an offer agreement when providing paid services. It is considered automatically concluded after payment has been made. As a supporting document, you must attach to the copy of the agreement an extract from the employee’s bank card from which the payment was made.

- Acts. The certificate of services rendered can be printed in the employee’s personal account. There you can also find a certificate of advertising placement, or a payment log with a report. Most often, there is also information about ID, date, titles and other details. It is also recommended to take a screenshot of the screen. He can confirm that the advertisement was indeed published.

— Certificate and other documents. We also advise you to prepare an accounting certificate, since all acts and agreements exist in electronic form. In the certificate you need to write why there are no original documents without seals and signatures. It is also worth mentioning the need for advertising on the Internet in a marketing plan. The action plan, approximate plan and estimate of planned expenses should also be indicated there.

(And how to save more than 2 million rubles a year).

Tatiana Nikanorova especially for Kitties, he tells how to deal with paying for advertising activities on Facebook and Instagram - legally and at the lowest possible cost.

I live and work in Russia, so I wrote this article for companies operating under Russian laws. However, before sending the material to the editor, I contacted Belarusian accountants and found out: the “Google Law” with identical rules in Belarus will come into force on January 1, 2018.

Why is this a problem

If you are an experienced entrepreneur and already know why it is difficult to pay for Facebook officially, you can skip the first two paragraphs and go straight to solving the issues. And for those who don’t know, I’ll tell you everything from the very beginning.

There are two problems that put Facebook outside the legal framework

Problem 1: Facebook does not issue paper documents in Russia

No one. None. Targeted advertising specialists wrote to Facebook asking for official primary documents for accounting, or at least to explain why they were not being issued, but Facebook did not even respond. The fact is obvious: Facebook collects money in the Russian Federation without bothering itself with legal issues.

Why is this critical? But because expenses that are not confirmed by primary documents cannot be accepted for tax purposes - and here all companies on the OSNO and on the simplified tax system “income minus expenses” suffer. And for small companies with a simplified tax system of 6% or a patent, it is important that these expenses are not recognized as being made in the interests of an individual, and, accordingly, are subject to personal income tax of 13% as income in kind.

Problem 2: Introducing a “Google Tax”

“Google Tax” is a new mechanism for collecting VAT on services in electronic form via the Internet (Article 174.2 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation). Entered into force on January 1, 2017. Thus, in particular, the provision of advertising services on the Internet is subject to VAT on the territory of the Russian Federation. This was done in order to equalize the taxation of Russian companies that pay VAT on their services within the country, and to prevent them from going abroad to optimize taxes.
Facebook, in accordance with the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, provides advertising services on the Internet, for which it takes money. In accordance with Russian legislation:

a) when providing services to individuals, Facebook must register in the Russian Federation and pay tax on its own;

b) when providing such services to legal entities or individual entrepreneurs, the latter are tax agents and must independently calculate and pay VAT and submit a tax return.

Example:
My company pays Facebook directly with a corporate card. Let's assume our advertising budget per month is 10,000 rubles. From January 1, my company becomes a tax agent, and monthly I must calculate VAT in the amount of 18% of the amount spent: 10,000 / 100 * 18 = 1,800 rubles. In 3 months you will accumulate 1,800*3 = 5,400 rubles. The tax amount is 5400 rubles. - my company must pay to the budget by April 25 (by the 25th day of the month following the reporting period) and submit a VAT return to the tax authorities electronically at the same time, despite the fact that I am on the simplified tax system.

Facebook fines:

As far as I know, at the time of writing this article (early February), Facebook was not registered with the tax authorities of the Russian Federation. Consequently, its provision of services to Russian citizens is outside the legal framework. According to the law, for this Facebook is subject to a fine of 10% of all income received, but not less than 40,000 rubles (clause 2, article 116 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation).

Solutions

There will be several solutions, depending on what taxation system the company or individual entrepreneur uses.

Business on OSNO

A company using the traditional taxation system is already a VAT payer. According to the tax code, VAT calculated by a legal entity (or individual entrepreneur) as a tax agent can be deducted. There will be no additional tax burden. Such a company can safely pay Facebook officially.

The action plan is as follows:

Every month the accountant charges 18% of the amounts paid to Facebook.
At the end of the quarter, the accountant prepares a VAT return and enters data on Facebook VAT into the sales book and into the purchase book at the same time.
There are no additional taxes.

What to do with missing primary documents?

Yes, unfortunately, there will be no primary documents from Facebook, so it will be illegal to reduce income tax by the amount of advertising expenses. However, the lack of primary documents will not prevent you from making the payment officially. To ensure that advertising expenses are not imputed to one of the employees or the general director as personal income, you need to keep confirmation that the expenses were made for production purposes. Or, in the strict language of the code, they are economically justified.

Simply put, you need to prove that you advertised your own services or goods, or the services and goods of your clients, if you are an SMM agency.
You can prove this in the following way: collect information confirming the content of advertising campaigns. It will be enough to save a detailed report from the Ads manager (section and the corresponding menu item on Facebook), which shows which campaign the money was spent on and in what amount.

A particularly meticulous accountant can report that this report does not show what exactly was advertised, but only the names of the advertising campaigns. In practice, if an inspection comes, you can open your advertising account and show the inspection inspector the contents of advertising posts. With a 99% probability this will satisfy him. If not, print out the screenshots, this will satisfy both the inspector and the court.

Actually, all you need to do is prove that this advertisement was published for the benefit of your company, or for the benefit of your clients if you are an SMM agency, and not for the benefit of third parties who are not clients.

Particularly cautious accountants can play it safe and draw up an order in which management orders spending on Facebook without supporting documents, providing details from the advertising account.

Business on the simplified tax system, patent, UTII or tax holidays

All tax systems listed in the subtitle do not calculate VAT. The catch is that, unlike OSNO, a simplified company will not be able to offset the VAT paid. For such a company, the tax burden will increase - by exactly 18% of the amounts paid to Facebook.

Action plan:

Every month the accountant charges 18% on the amounts paid on Facebook.
At the end of the quarter, the accountant draws up a VAT return and enters data on “Facebook” VAT into it - into the sales book.
By the 25th day after the end of the quarter, the accountant pays the calculated VAT and submits a tax return.

How to avoid costs in the form of this VAT?

The only way: withdraw money legally (!) to a physical person. person and pay for advertising on Facebook from an individual’s card. This is quite legal for an individual who is not an individual entrepreneur, but completely illegal for Facebook, however, individuals. the person behind FB is not responsible, at least at the time of writing.

I will not describe in detail the methods of legal withdrawal of funds in this article, I will just list them.

Methods for legal withdrawal of funds:

Pay the tax, and then transfer the money to your personal card.

For LLC and other commercial legal entity. persons (in ascending order of tax burden):

Payment for the services of an individual entrepreneur (6%).
Payment of dividends (13%).
Payment of salaries (43.2%).

Obviously, the latter method is not profitable, and it is easier to pay VAT than to withdraw money via salary. But the first two can be used quite well.

Example:

A small but quite successful SMM agency (LLC). The turnover is less than 150 million rubles per year, so the company applies the simplified tax system of 6% on income. The agency provides targeted advertising services on social networks; the budgets of the agency’s clients for advertising on Facebook amount to 2 million rubles. per month.

Note: I specifically took an advertising budget of 2 million rubles per month. The fact is that Russian banks block the withdrawal of large amounts of money, and it is very difficult to find a bank with a low commission for withdrawing large amounts. On average, 150–300 thousand rubles per month are easily withdrawn. Anything higher is either a large percentage, or the bank does not allow such a withdrawal at all. Therefore, for our example, we will also take into account the bank commission that Sberbank will take - it will be 1%.

If you conduct Facebook officially:

2 million * 12 months /100*18 = 4.320 million rubles of additional tax per year + declaration.

If you withdraw money through dividends:

2 million * 12 months /100*(13+1) = 3.360 million rubles of additional tax per year (which is 0.96 million rubles per year less than the official version).

If you withdraw money through an IP Manager

2 million * 12 months /100*(6+1) = 1.681 million rubles of additional tax per year (which is 2.639 million rubles per year less than the official version).

be careful

Big games at the country and mega-corporation level can affect your earnings. And you cannot blame anyone for your losses unless you control all operations yourself. Even Trump.

The entire experience of the Profdelo company confirms this. If you do not respond to changes in legislation in a timely manner, the consequences accumulate unnoticed and inexorably. We believe that it is better to prevent a problem than to waste energy dealing with the consequences.

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