How are license expenses correctly written off under the simplified tax system?

Accounting for license costs under the simplified tax system

Quite often a situation arises in a company when some software or license for a computer is purchased.
And then the accountant is faced with the question: how to correctly take into account this license if the company is on a simplified taxation system? To correctly answer this question, you need to understand what exactly you acquired - rights to the software or a non-exclusive right to use?

• If these are exclusive rights to use a license, and you have the corresponding document in your hands, then it will be an intangible asset, and its accounting will have to be kept on the basis of PBU 14/2007. The holder of such rights can use the result of someone’s mental activity at his own discretion, or permit or prohibit such use by other persons (Article 1229 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation).
• But if you have in your hands an act for the acquisition of a non-exclusive right to use a certain program, then this is a current expense.

We must remember that for companies that have chosen a simplified taxation regime, financial accounting is simplified, and they have the right not to comply with many of the requirements for companies on OSNO. But accounting for fixed assets and intangible assets is mandatory for all companies, regardless of the types of taxes paid.

You can read more about accounting under the simplified tax system in this article.

Accordingly, if you acquire an exclusive right that can be qualified as an intangible asset, then in accordance with PBU 14/2007 you must register it in account 04 at the actual cost of the acquisition and pay off its cost through depreciation. The useful life of an intangible asset must be determined based on the period during which the organization expects to receive economic benefits from it. It is recommended that the established deadlines be reviewed annually and updated if necessary.

On our website you can read more about the procedure for assigning SPI for intangible assets: “How to determine the useful life of intangible assets .

If you have acquired the right to use intangible assets, then payment under the agreement for such rights will be taken into account in the reporting period, and the license itself must be reflected in the off-balance sheet account of the licensor (that is, the company that uses this license).

If your company purchased a software product as a non-exclusive right, then you must remember that, in accordance with the current provisions on accounting, licenses are that rare exception that must be used as deferred expenses (FPR). That is, your company’s accounting should contain the following entries:

• Dt 97 Kt 60 - a license was purchased under a 12-month contract. worth 60,000 rubles. without VAT;
• D 25, 26, 44 Kt 97 - 5,000 rub. monthly - the license is written off as an expense as a RBP.

Accounting for license acquisition transactions

Let's look at typical transactions for an organization's acquisition of software licenses, as well as for types of activities, using examples.

Software licenses

Let’s say that LLC “Snegovik” was acquired:

• computer at a cost of 56,000 rubles, VAT 8,542 rubles,
• license for the right to use the Windows operating system (4,300 rubles, VAT 656 rubles);
• Software "1C: Accounting" (4,850 rubles, VAT 740 rubles) with a period of use of 2 years.

The accountant of Snowman LLC made the following entries:

Licenses for activities

Let's imagine that Util Service LLC organizes activities to provide recycling services for car tires. This type of activity presupposes that Util Service LLC has an appropriate license, for the purpose of obtaining which the organization turned to Document Plus LLC. The cost of services under the contract with Document Plus LLC amounted to 14,500 rubles, VAT 2,212 rubles, and the amount of state duty paid to the budget was 3,800 rubles.

In the accounting of Util Service LLC, transactions for the acquisition of a license for a type of activity were reflected as follows:

Tax accounting of license expenses under the simplified tax system

Let's first look at accounting for the acquisition of exclusive rights (that is, intangible assets).

Under the simplified tax system, the composition of intangible assets (clause 4 of article 346.16 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation) can include depreciable property worth more than 40,000 rubles, having a useful life of more than 12 months, used by the taxpayer for his own needs. Moreover, if the purchase and sale agreement specifies periodic payments during the term of the agreement, then such objects cannot be classified as intangible assets (subclause 8, clause 2, article 256 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation).

Expenses for intangible assets acquired or created during the period of application of the simplified tax system are written off quarterly in equal amounts until the end of the tax period, after payment and acceptance of the object for accounting.

If we have an act for the acquisition of non-exclusive rights, we will focus on subsection. 2.1 clause 1 art. 346.16 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, which indicates the costs of purchasing exclusive rights to inventions, computer programs, as well as rights to use the listed developments in accordance with a license agreement.

Such expenses can be accepted for tax accounting at a time, immediately after payment to the counterparty and acceptance of non-exclusive rights for accounting.

Explanations from ConsultantPlus experts will help you reflect your license in your accounting. Get trial access to K+ for free and go to the Deal Guide.

How to reflect the purchase of 1C in accounting and tax accounting

Expenses for the purchase of 1C programs are considered expenses for ordinary activities and cannot be classified as intangible assets. The accounting automation system 1C: Accounting is no exception.

Accounting

Since 1C software products are often used by organizations for more than one month, and their payment is made in the form of a one-time fixed payment, in accounting it is reflected as deferred expenses with subsequent write-off as expenses during the period of use of the program. If the contract does not specify the period of use of the program, it should be set independently, based on the useful life of the program on the 1C:Enterprise platform or based on a letter from 1C, where the recommended service life of the program is 24 months. In this case, the maximum period during which the company can write off expenses is 5 years.

During this period, the amount of the one-time payment is evenly included in the expenses of the current period in account 26 “General business expenses”, because Software "1C:Enterprise 8" was purchased for the needs of accounting (clause 18, paragraph 3, clause 19 of PBU 10/99, Instructions for using the Chart of Accounts).

The following entries must be made in accounting:

• Debit account 60.01 – Credit account 51
• Debit account 97.21 – Credit account 60.01
• Debit account 26 – Credit account 97.21

If recording expenses for programs using 1C causes you difficulties, contact our 1C support specialists. We will be happy to help you!

In the 1C: Accounting program (rev. 3.0), the transaction of acquiring a non-exclusive right to use the software is reflected in the document “Receipt (act, invoice)”, as a service, because a software product cannot be entered into a warehouse as a product or material.

Fig. 1 The software is reflected in the document “Receipt (act, invoice)”

Fig.2 Accounts

Fig. 3 Deferred expenses

To view transactions, you must click the “Show transactions and other document movements” button (Dt/Kt)

Fig.4 Result of posting the document “Receipt (act, invoice)”

Result of posting the document “Receipt (act, invoice)”

To perform the operation of including part of the expenses in the current month, you need to create a “Regular operation” document with the operation type “Write off deferred expenses”. As a result of posting the document, the corresponding postings will be generated.

Fig.5 Creating and filling out the “Routine Operation” document

Fig.6 Closing the month

Creating and filling out the “Routine operation” document

Fig. 7 Result of carrying out the “Routine operation” document

The result of the “Routine operation” document

Amount of expenses written off:

• 10800/2/12 = 450 rub. per month
• 450 rubles / 31 = 14.52 rubles. in a day
• 14.52 * (31-5) = 377.42 rub. for December

Costs associated with the acquisition of the right to use computer programs under license and sublicense agreements are included in other costs associated with production and sales (clause 26, clause 1, article 264 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation).

If the terms of the license agreement establish a period for using computer programs, expenses are taken into account evenly over this period. If the license period is not established, then the organization can independently set the period for writing off expenses for the program (paragraph 2, paragraph 1, article 272 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, letter of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation dated 08/31/2012 No. 03-03-06/2/95, dated 18.03. 2014 No. 03-03-06/1/11743) or take it equal to 5 years (letter of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation dated 04/23/2013 No. 03-03-06/1/14039).

As a rule, the useful life of RBP for software in BU and NU is set the same so that the cost is repaid in equal shares:

Fig.8 NU

VAT deductions on future expenses (for the purchase of 1C programs) are carried out in the generally established manner if the following conditions are met:

• The goods have been accepted for accounting;
• VAT amounts have been paid to the supplier;
• The purchased goods are intended for use in activities subject to VAT;
• Availability of a supplier invoice with a allocated VAT amount.

If a taxpayer has received a program of the 1C:Enterprise family, then he has the right to deduct the entire amount of “input” VAT relating to them, regardless of when their cost is charged to costs. Those. the amount of VAT can be deducted in full in the period when the program was purchased and accepted for accounting on account 97.21.

Application of standards PBU 18/02

In accounting, the costs of acquiring 1C:Enterprise programs will be written off as expenses during the established period of use of the program, and in tax accounting - at a time during the acquisition period. Such a difference is reflected according to the rules regulated by PBU 18/02.

In accounting (for the period in which the programs were acquired), it is necessary to reflect a taxable temporary difference in an amount equal to the difference between the entire amount of expenses for the acquisition of programs and the amount that participates in the formation of accounting profit for the reporting period. The identified taxable temporary difference will be repaid gradually as expenses for the acquisition of programs are written off from account 97.21 (during the established period of use of the program).

An example of how license costs are reflected in KUDiR

LLC "Kniga" in January 2022 acquired the right to a computer license for its needs on the basis of an agreement and an acceptance certificate. The cost of the license was 100,000 rubles. without VAT. The program was paid for on the day of purchase and was immediately installed on computer workstations. The useful life of intangible assets is set at 3 years.

1. If we are talking about the fact that this license will be considered an intangible asset for the company (there is a license agreement, the right is exclusive), then on the basis of Art. 346 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, we must write off expenses incurred in equal amounts over the course of one tax period (100,000 rubles / 4 quarters = 25,000 rubles per quarter). That is, the book of income and expenses for the 1st quarter will look like this:

The same entries will appear in the book for 2, 3, 4 quarters. Expenses for the purchase of intangible assets are entered into section 1 of the accounting book on the last day of the reporting or tax period (subclause 4, clause 2, article 346.17 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation).

You can find out the procedure for filling out the book of income and expenses here .

Let's see how the acquisition of a new intangible asset will be reflected in the 2nd section of KUDiR:

1. If a license was acquired on the basis of a sublicense agreement, then this program will no longer be considered an intangible asset, and, accordingly, the costs of its acquisition can be immediately included in the expenses of the current period in tax accounting. In section 1 of KUDiR, the costs of its acquisition should be reflected in column 5.

In addition, we note some points related to the maintenance of such licenses in tax accounting:

• Programs need to be updated periodically and service companies need to be paid for this. The costs of updating are expressly indicated in sub-clause. 19 clause 1 art. 346.16 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation and can be taken into account immediately after payment.
• If the contract specifies periodic payments for the use of the program (license), then such expenses are taken into account in tax accounting in accordance with subclause. 32 clause 1 art. 346.16 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, that is, also upon payment.

You can read many of the nuances of tax expenses under the simplified tax system in this material .

Results

To correctly attribute license expenses to expenses, an accountant needs to know exactly what type of right (exclusive or non-exclusive) the organization received, how it can be used, and how to correctly qualify this expense.
Based on the data obtained, it will not be difficult to correctly determine tax expenses. You can find more complete information on the topic in ConsultantPlus. Free trial access to the system for 2 days.