M. Stulov / Vedomosti

The government may grant individual entrepreneurs (IE) who have undergone state registration for the first time a two-year tax amnesty. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev instructed the relevant ministries to work on this issue together with the Delovaya Rossiya organization. It is planned to exempt entrepreneurs from all taxes and contributions.

This is a radical change in the approach to taxation of entrepreneurs. Last year, a decision was made to double the rate of insurance contributions for individual entrepreneurs. "The Prime Minister supported the social block of the government, while financial and economic officials were on our side," recalls co-chairman of Delovaya Rossiya Alexander Galushka. In November, at a meeting with the Prime Minister, business organizations asked to change the decision, but the Prime Minister was adamant. As a result, according to the Federal Tax Service, as of June 1, 458,000 individual entrepreneurs were deregistered.

No one seriously expected such figures, Galushka explains. According to him, the mass departure of entrepreneurs influenced the prime minister - this is already an emergency situation. And it is precisely because of this erroneous decision that such drastic counter-measures as a two-year exemption are now needed, he continues: "According to our estimates, half a million entrepreneurs have already left the market - in order to bring them all back, it is not enough to simply reduce the contributions back."

Previously, the government considered less radical ways to correct the error. In the spring, the Ministry of Finance agreed to differentiate the tariff for individual entrepreneurs based on their annual income. And on Friday, the State Duma adopted in the third reading a law on reducing insurance premiums for individual entrepreneurs (should come into force at the beginning of next year): if the annual turnover does not exceed 300,000 rubles, then the rate will be one minimum wage (MW), if it exceeds - 1 MW and 1% of the turnover.

Many issues still need to be worked out, including how to control whether this is the first registration or not, says an official from the government's financial and economic block. Only those who have undergone state registration for the first time after the law was signed will be exempt from taxes, Galushka clarifies. At the end of 2012, only 3.9 million entrepreneurs were registered in Russia, their total number decreased by 75,099 over the year, while 3.7 million people ceased their entrepreneurial activities.

Revenues from personal income tax on income received from individual entrepreneurs and individuals engaged in private practice amounted to 13.5 billion rubles last year. The Finance Ministry did not answer the question on Monday about the amount of lost revenue. There will be none at all, Galushka assures: after all, these entrepreneurs are not currently doing any business at all.

New entrepreneurs will receive tax holidays