A gift of 10 thousand rubles to the self-employed and the fight against fly-by-night individual entrepreneurs: what to expect from the tax office this year

The head of the Federal Tax Service, Mikhail Mishustin, after a meeting with Vladimir Putin and news about testing a 3% new tax on the self-employed from 2019, gave an interview to Kommersant. In it, he told what to expect from the service in the near future. Here are the main innovations:

About the self-employed

• Who are the self-employed? In an interview, Mishustin paid much attention to the self-employed: on the eve of the president instructed to transfer them to the new tax in four test regions. The self-employed, according to Mishustin, should include “individuals who do not have employees and independently sell goods, works, services or property rights to both individuals and legal entities without registering as an entrepreneur.” At the same time, the official made a reservation that the State Duma and lawyers who will participate in the preparation of the bill will give the final definition of self-employed. For the self-employed who can work in this mode, restrictions will be established on the types of activities (for example, in this mode it is impossible to legalize income from the sale of apartments and real estate) and the maximum amount of income from such activities.
• Why will people register as self-employed? “We [the Federal Tax Service] conducted a large-scale study last year and found out that people do not want to register, because for this they have to go to the tax office,” says Mishustin. Other reasons are the need to pay tax and insurance premiums, even if there is no actual income from the activity. “Now we are doing it in such a way that it is possible to legalize in a few clicks from home, having only a passport in hand,” says the head of the Federal Tax Service. For the self-employed, a special application has been created through which it will be possible to register and pay taxes.
• Benefits for the self-employed and their clients. The self-employed will also be encouraged to legalize through buyers: they may have the opportunity to receive a tax deduction for their taxes when buying from the self-employed - 1.5% of the purchase amount, up to 10 thousand rubles a year. The self-employed themselves at the time of registration may be provided with tax capital for development, about 10 thousand rubles.
• The tax goes to the aggregators of orders. Now services like YouDo, Yandex.Taxi, Uber and AirBnB only help to get an order. “If aggregators include taxes on income with a special regime for the self-employed, just as an ordinary employer makes personal income tax payments for individuals without problems, the issue will be resolved,” Mishustin is sure.

Fight against fictitious individual entrepreneurs

Together with the Ministry of Finance, the Federal Tax Service prepared and submitted to the government amendments to the law on registration, according to which the tax authorities will be able, as in the case of legal entities, to terminate the status of an individual entrepreneur if he has not submitted tax returns for more than a year and has unsettled tax debts or arrears in payments to non-budgetary funds. The tax authority, as in the case of legal entities, will publish a decision on the upcoming exclusion, and if there are no motivated objections within three months, the IP will be excluded from the USRIP.

About automatic exchange of tax information

“The Federal Tax Service has expanded the list of partner states for the exchange as much as possible, it is already almost 100 jurisdictions (earlier it was about 70 countries. - The Bell). The financial world is becoming absolutely transparent, it is impossible to hide capital anywhere without a trace, this time has ended before our eyes.”

About business audits

“A conscientious taxpayer has nothing to worry about now, without the need, the tax authorities do not bother business at all. We have been reducing the number of inspections for many years; in 2017, field inspections affected 0.24% of taxpayers, which is much less than in the world. We are engaged in the whitewashing of various industries - in the near future it will be the markets of fish products and cleaning services.

On simplifying the reporting of cash register owners

“Now we are thinking about further simplifying reporting for those who use online cash registers. This is an important incentive."

About income tax returns

“This year, the total number of declarations should exceed 10 million. Russians more often file declarations, declaring not about income, but tax deductions - their number has increased by 18% -23%. People are actively using the benefits provided by the legislation.”

• This year, individuals can fill out a 3-NDFL tax return online directly on the website of the Federal Tax Service of Russia in the taxpayer's personal account, sign and send it to the tax authority along with documents without a personal visit. The site also has a program for filling out the declaration with a set of hints and automatic verification of the correctness of the filling.
• Citizens no longer have to declare income if the tax from it was not withheld by a tax agent. This applies to cases of receiving income in kind in the form of gifts, prizes, income from certain securities. “In general, if you win a mobile phone contest, you have received income. If the organizer did not withhold personal income tax from you and informed us about it, you must pay the tax. But a declaration is not needed: it can be paid on the basis of a tax notice and receipt. When property taxes come, all this will be reflected in one document,” explains Mishustin.
• Various kinds of debts, as well as material benefits, benefits will be exempt from taxation in accordance with the instructions of the President. Tax notices for the payment of tax on such income by the tax authorities this year will not be sent.

Artem Gubenko