Applications of the Newcomb-Benford law in the tax audit of the service tax (ISS)

• Autor(a) principal: Santos, Josenildo dos
• Data de Publicação: 2009
• Outros Autores: Ribeiro Filho, José Francisco, Lagioia, Umbelina, Alves Filho, Bartolomeu Figueiredo, Araújo, Ivson José Caldas de
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Contabilidade & Finanças (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://www.revistas.usp.br/rcf/article/view/34283
• topic: Newcomb-Benford Law; Accounting-fiscal auditing; Frauds; Lei de Newcomb-Benford; Auditoria contábil-fiscal; Fraudes

This paper aimed to check if the quantitative accounting model based on the Newcomb-Benford Law (NB-law) is applicable to ISS tax auditing. For this purpose, the result of the quantitative accounting model was confronted with the result of the accounting-fiscal audit registered in the Final Fiscalization report elaborated by the tax authorities of a municipal government in a city in the Brazilian Northeast. A case study was carried out in a publicity company and the analysis period covers the receipts (NFs) issued between 2002 and 2005. For data collection, multiple sources of evidence were used within reach for the study objectives. As for data treatment, descriptive (position and dispersion measures) and inference statistics (hypothesis and significance test and correlation analysis) were used. The results of the case study evidenced the applicability of the model based on the NB-law for the ISS tax auditing process, because this signaled the possible deviations in the issuing and bookkeeping of the receipts, which were confirmed by the results of the fiscalization.