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The Federal Tax Service has unveiled new methods of combating “gray” salaries
The Federal Tax Service (FTS) explained what methods should be used to identify and prove facts of concealment of real wages at enterprises. Fiscal officials intend to fight “gray” wages not only by calling for a conversation those managers whose companies have wages below the subsistence level, but also through sophisticated analytical work. Those who will be on notice will be those who issue additional payments through bonuses and allowances, enterprises whose payrolls do not correspond to the amounts indicated in job advertisements, and even those companies where retired employees have implausibly high salaries.The Federal Tax Service explained how to correctly use evidence of concealment of wages in court in a letter containing the decision of the Arbitration Court of the Udmurt Republic on the claim of tax authorities about the evasion of an enterprise from paying income and unified social taxes. The Federal Tax Service invites all inspectors to become familiar with the evidence found by Izhevsk tax officials for analysis and further use in their work. The lack of information in the company’s internal documents about additional payments to employees in the form of bonuses, allowances and additional payments for off-hour work may well become a reason for holding the company accountable for concealing real wages. An indicator of dishonesty may also be a discrepancy between the earnings promised in the vacancy announcement and the amounts reflected in the salary slips. As are the high salaries of employees of pre-retirement age and the low salaries of company executives.
The case examined evidence obtained by tax authorities during an on-site tax audit of the Izhevsk company Reductor-Energo LLC. The inspection took place back in 2004 and began following a signal from the employment center, which in turn received a complaint from a company employee who had been dismissed due to staff reduction. In the certificate for the employment center, his salary was 6.5 thousand rubles, and the tax office received information about his salary of 3.4 thousand rubles.
To make the evidence more powerful in court, tax officials found 11 of the company’s bravest employees who agreed to testify in court. When receiving wages, these workers signed two statements; one statement reflected the salary, the other - “unofficial” - bonuses under the contract, taking into account the Ural coefficient, and for workers - corresponding additional payments and allowances. On the main point, the witnesses were unanimous: all of them had a “black” salary that was two to three times higher than their “white” salary.
It also turned out that the salary of employees of pre-retirement age was paradoxically assigned higher than that of managers. The salary, in particular for a storekeeper, is several times higher than the salary of the head of the organization.
An inspection of the personnel department premises was also carried out, where a list of the organization’s vacancies with an indication of the salary was presented on the notice board. It turned out that the amount of wages offered for vacant positions does not correspond to the level of wages in the organization reflected in the reports submitted to the tax authority.
Tax officials sent a request to the Udmurt State Statistics Committee about the current level of wages in organizations with the type of activity “Heating networks” and “Steam and hot water transmission”. It turned out that the salary at the enterprise was several times lower than the statistical average.
The Ural tax authorities added to the evidence the resolution of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Udmurtia to conduct an inspection of the premises of Reductor-Energo LLC. Employees of the internal affairs bodies seized two system units, on which the deleted files containing the contents of real payroll statements were then restored. In these statements, a real calculation of wages at the enterprise was made with the accrual of additional money that does not go through the “white” statements: bonuses, allowances and the so-called “team leader” and “evening”.
The court recognized that the enterprise carried out double accounting of wages during the audited period. The court considered the collection of evidence using such methods to be completely acceptable. In this regard, the resolution is symptomatic of a reference to an article of the Civil Code, which states that if the right is abused, the arbitration court may refuse to protect a person’s right. The court qualified the actions of Reductor-Energo LLC as being dishonest. And an unscrupulous taxpayer should not enjoy the same protection regime as a conscientious one, the court decision says.