Own business

How the government tried not to interfere with business operations

Among the priorities outlined by Vladimir Putin at the beginning of his first term, building relations between business and government was not the least important. Unlike oligarchic structures, which were prescribed “equidistance,” medium and small businesses were promised all kinds of support. In the long term - as, according to the president, an "ideal system" - small and medium-sized businesses were supposed to make up up to 80% of the Russian economy, as in developed countries.

This turned out to be easier said than done. Today, the share of small and medium-sized businesses is still low, and the long-term prospect remains very distant.

And yet it cannot be said that the situation has not changed in any way. At least they started talking out loud about the needs and problems of the “neoligarchic” part of the business. Moreover, the first attempts were made - widely publicized, although timid in essence - to remove the barriers standing in his way.

To give impetus to its development, it was decided to start “by limiting government interference in doing business.” Which, translated into human language, means a reduction in “official racketeering,” which was often more dangerous for business than criminal racketeering. The number of organizations that have the right to inspect enterprises exceeds a dozen. There are tax, fire, administrative and technical, environmental inspections, sanitary and epidemiological supervision, police, social insurance, licensing and certification authorities. Until 2001, inspection authorities could remind the management of enterprises as often as they liked, as a result of which some enterprises (especially profitable ones or those that did not have a “protection” among local officials) were inspected almost daily. Naturally, most of these checks amounted to banal extortion.

At the end of 2001, a limit was set for various inspections: a planned inspection of an enterprise should take place no more than twice a year. True, unscheduled inspections of unreliable enterprises are still carried out as often as before. Tax officials generally put this matter at the state level. Now, if they “feel” that the state is being underpaid, then they “fire” at the enterprise with a whole series of on-site and documentary inspections. In their language this is called “strengthening tax administration.”

Other inspectors were not far behind in their zeal. According to the Center for Economic and Financial Research and Development, in 2002, 23% of enterprises were victims of direct violations of the law by fire safety authorities, and 17% by sanitary and epidemiological authorities, which carried out repeated scheduled inspections at enterprises within one year. By 2003, inspections by internal affairs bodies became more frequent: 60% of their visits remain unplanned and are carried out without presenting an order. Moreover, the share of unplanned inspections for the police increased from 60 to 75%, for the fire service - from 33 to 63%, for the SES - from 31 to 56%. At the same time, inspectors are increasingly imposing “fines not based on the official scale” (that is, whatever they want): for the police, their number increased from 43 to 73%, for the fire service - from 25 to 43%.

Thus, the burden of bureaucratic racketeering for business has decreased quantitatively, but the volume of “donations” has increased.

The second step (and perhaps the only successful one) was the introduction of the “one-window principle” when registering enterprises, that is, simplifying the procedure for opening companies. But this innovation took several years. After lengthy discussions and strong opposition from regional authorities, a new registration procedure was introduced in 2002. If the preparation of documents for registering an enterprise in the late 90s took at least three months, today, with great skill in preparing documents, you can complete it in just over a week.

True, at first it was very difficult to get into “one window”. The stated five-day period for registration in practice turned out to be at least a month. The fact is that initially the simplified registration principle was valid only in a truncated version. On the sixth day after submitting the documents, the entrepreneur actually received a registration certificate. However, this alone was not enough for the company to actually start working. Without registering with extra-budgetary funds and obtaining classification codes from statistical authorities, it is impossible to open a bank account. To bypass all the funds (plus the State Statistics Committee department), the entrepreneur needed to prepare four additional packages of documents.

This problem was resolved only in January of this year. Now, to open a bank account, you no longer need to wait for notifications from extra-budgetary funds about registration. You can now open your own business within a guaranteed seven days. The funds were required to independently assign registration numbers to newly created enterprises and transmit information back to the tax authorities for inclusion in the Unified Register of Legal Entities. Credit institutions, in turn, have made it mandatory to require only two documents from an entrepreneur to open a current account: a certificate of state registration and a certificate of tax registration.

In 2002, it was also decided to simplify obtaining licenses and certificates. The new law significantly reduced the number of licensed activities and reduced licensing fees from 3 thousand rubles. up to 1.4 thousand rubles. The license must now be renewed more than once every three years, and no more than once every five years. True, getting a license for less than 10 thousand rubles. impossible.

The time required to obtain a license has also not become shorter. It still takes a month to obtain them, or even more if you need a license for construction or the production of medicines. Local authorities still issue licenses for activities that are not subject to licensing, for example, trade, television and radio broadcasting, jewelry work, and the operation of a number of machinery.

The next stage of supporting business (primarily small ones) was supposed to be tax reform. At first glance, the changes in taxation with the introduction of a special simplified system are impressive: the number of taxes paid has been halved. In addition, if previously, in order to receive tax benefits, it was necessary for an enterprise to employ no more than 20 people, but since 2003, the status of small has been extended to enterprises with a staff of up to one hundred people. However, at the same time, a new bar was set, blocking the path of enterprises to a simplified system. To take advantage of it, the company must have an annual income of no more than 15 million rubles. And these are no longer small, but rather micro-enterprises from the sphere of consumer services, tent trading near the metro, small-scale furniture manufacturing or clothing production.

And the tax reduction itself was not fully thought out. In any business, participants in the trade chain are interested in VAT refunds, and small businesses, exempt from paying it, interrupted this chain. Therefore, none of the big ones wants to get involved with them, which closes important areas of activity for their smaller brothers, especially in the field of production.

If, with the removal of administrative barriers and taxation, the situation has at least somehow moved forward over the past four years, then the search for sources of financing for many who dream of “their own business” still remains a struggle. Even in a financial market seemingly overflowing with money, it was not possible to force the banking system to fall in love with “neoligarchic” business.

Although a number of banks did open lines for lending to small and medium-sized businesses as a separate line of activity, this was done rather in the form of PR projects. According to bankers, this kind of lending is still too expensive in terms of operating costs and too risky, so interest on loans is still prohibitively high, and the maximum term rarely exceeds two years. Often the obstacle to obtaining a loan is not even high rates, but the lack of collateral. A small entrepreneur is also required to draw up such a mass of documents that he can complete only if he acquires his own accounting department.

True, small businesses in terms of raising funds in recent years have been in a more advantageous position compared to the so-called medium-sized enterprises. In addition to commercial loans, small businesses can at least apply for government support. The administrations of some cities are quite willing to give one-time subsidies to budding businessmen. A Fund for Financial Support of Small Enterprises has also been created, which provides loans to businesses directly from the budget. The main advantage of government lending is low rates and a fairly long repayment period.

Another thing is that the queue for receiving a loan from the fund is most similar to the queue for free housing, where demand always exceeds supply many times over. Moreover, the effectiveness of officials’ consideration of loan applications often depends on the personal interest of this civil servant in issuing a specific loan to a specific person. By the way, precisely because of high corruption, the system of lending through privatization funds, when enterprises independently negotiated loans with commercial banks, and the funds compensated for part of the interest rate, has become obsolete.

As a result, we can say that over the past four years, although the authorities have been concerned with the problems of developing domestic business, they have really only been able to indicate this interest. Meanwhile, in a situation where, on the one hand, we have frightened and already demoralized “oligarchic” structures, and on the other, still largely stagnant “normal” business, primarily medium and small, these statements about intentions look completely insufficient. Moreover, it is not entirely clear who in this case will increase the country’s gross product, fill its treasury and create jobs.

Experts believe that for every entrepreneur in the country there is at least one official. There is no talk of any effective support for small and medium-sized businesses in such a situation.

According to a survey by the Center for Economic and Financial Research and Development , entrepreneurs see the problems hindering business as follows (in descending order):

- level of taxes,

- economic instability in the country,

- level of competition,

- tax administration,

- government regulation,

- difficulties in raising capital,

- unequal conditions of competition,

-- corruption,

- racket.

If, on a rating scale, racketeering and corruption are assessed by business at the level of “not a problem - a minor problem,” then the level of taxes is assigned a rating of “a very significant problem.”

Prepared by Irina SKLYAROVA