Translated material
Program "1500 rubles"
The President will relieve tax authorities from collecting penny debts from citizens
Tax officers and customs officers will begin to “accumulate” small debts of citizens to the budget to the extent that it will not be a shame to go to court. The corresponding bill was submitted to the State Duma yesterday by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The head of state proposes to make changes to the Tax Code.According to the amendment, tax and customs authorities will have the right to apply to the courts with claims against individuals for debt collection only after the total amount of taxes, fees, penalties and fines is at least 1.5 thousand rubles. In this case, the six-month period during which the fiscal authorities can go to court to collect the debt will be counted from the moment the arrears exceed this amount. It is also proposed to amend the Civil Procedure Code, allowing courts to refuse to issue a court order to collect a debt if its amount does not reach 1,500 rubles.
The law is designed to relieve fiscal authorities and courts from the work of collecting small amounts from citizens. The explanatory note to the bill states: “The number of claims by tax (customs) authorities in courts of general jurisdiction for the collection of taxes and fees from the property of individuals increases every year. At the same time, a significant number of cases involve the collection of insignificant amounts of arrears and debts, the repayment of which usually does not cause disputes.” That is, citizens usually readily pay off their penny debts as soon as they find out about them.
The head of the Federal Bailiff Service (FSSP), Artur Parfenchikov, said at the end of last year that his department spends up to 5 billion rubles annually on collecting cheap debts. The FSSP has accumulated hundreds of thousands of executive documents of cases for amounts up to 10 kopecks. And the cost of collecting a debt of 1 kopeck is 400 rubles.
It reaches the point of absurdity. Even Gazprom sometimes receives notifications that it has a debt of several rubles. It is clear that the price of postage is orders of magnitude higher than this amount. Tax officials have been criticized for being overzealous and attempting to collect arrears at costs that are many times greater than the amount owed. However, in December last year, the Ministry of Finance clarified in its letter that tax authorities do not have the right to refuse to collect debts to the budget, regardless of the size of the arrears.
The Supreme Court tried to solve the problem of penny debts. In 2009, he even introduced a bill to the State Duma that would give tax authorities the right to collect small debts out of court. At the insistence of the presidential administration, deputies rejected the document. However, in March of this year, at a meeting with Dmitry Medvedev, it was decided to return to the issue of small debts and find a solution.
The decision turned out to be very unusual. Lawyers interviewed by Vremya Novostei disagreed about how many years the Federal Tax Service can increase debts. Some experts fear that the statute of limitations for small debts will actually be abolished. Due to penalties and fines, which, according to the director of the Moscow office of Tax Consulting UK Eduard Savulyak, can reach two refinancing rates of the Central Bank - 15-16% per annum, debts will grow to one and a half thousand rubles for as many years as desired. After this, the taxpayer will suddenly receive notice of a fairly significant debt, amounting to about 10% of the income of the average Russian.
“Previously, for each small amount it was necessary to initiate separate enforcement proceedings. Now the tax authorities will have the opportunity to wait for the accumulation of a more or less impressive amount without the risk of missing the six-month deadline for going to court,” believes Andrey Zelenin, partner at the Lidings law firm. He fears that the period of debt accumulation up to 1.5 thousand rubles. will not be included in the generally accepted three-year statute of limitations for debt collection. “It must be provided that in any case, the statute of limitations for the first debts in the order of occurrence cannot be extended beyond three years,” the lawyer believes. In this case, debts that do not grow to 1.5 thousand rubles in three years will be written off.
Tatyana Vinokurova, director of the subscriber services department of the audit company MKPTSN, considers summing up debts impossible: “The collection period for each amount is different. And if more than three years have passed since the debt arose, there is simply no right to collect it.” Sergei Semenov, partner of the Tax Help law firm, reminds that although the statute of limitations for the collection of taxes and penalties is not provided for by law, the practice of, in particular, the Supreme Arbitration Court has established that the statute of limitations is three years.
Eduard Savulyak considers the bill to be a kind of compromise. The Ministry of Finance does not allow writing off small debts, and the cost of collecting a debt of any size, according to its estimates, is exactly close to the amount of 1,500 rubles. Therefore, the presidential amendments can be seen as freeing tax authorities from the need to go to court for every small debt. But Mr. Savulyak advises those with penny debts not to relax. “You should pay your debts and take care of your debts yourself. No one can cancel the issue of “not letting people go abroad” with such debts,” the lawyer reminds.
“In order to prevent an increase in the amount of penalties and fines, each taxpayer can use the information contained on the website of the tax service and view the data on his personal account about the accrued amounts of taxes, penalties and fines,” recommends Tatyana Vinokurova. True, for now the Federal Tax Service provides the opportunity to check your debts for four taxes - income, property, land and transport.