Self-employed Russians face account blocking

As soon as the Federal Tax Service reported an increase in the number of officially registered self-employed to 40,000, it turned out that working in this status is difficult, if not impossible, writes Banki.ru. It turned out that the status of self-employed combines the worst of an individual (the inability to use a personal account for business) and of an individual entrepreneur (banking and anti-money laundering control with blocking of accounts). For now, it looks like it is safer for those who came out of the shadows to return back.

More details. The first cases of blocking accounts of self-employed people have already occurred, and it happens according to the following scheme:

• A self-employed person with “professional income” is not considered a full-fledged entrepreneur.
• A self-employed person cannot open a special account as an individual entrepreneur.
• He is forced to use an individual account for business activities, which is usually prohibited by the contract.
• The bank has questions regarding the receipt of funds into the current account.
• The bank does not know whether the self-employed person contributes income to the “My Tax” system and does not want to risk the attention of the Central Bank.
• The bank asks to explain the nature of financial transactions under the anti-money laundering law 115-FZ.
• The bank blocks the account and, possibly, the personal card of the self-employed person for suspicious transactions.
• In extreme cases, the bank blacklists the client.

Where is the exit?

Bankers strongly advise clients to inform them of their self-employed status (although they are not obliged to do so) and reserve the right to demand clarification of the origin of funds under the anti-money laundering law . In addition, it is better to open a separate account and use it only for business transactions.

Banks do not intend to discriminate against the self-employed in any special way, and most of them are not yet threatened by compliance control. "Individual entrepreneurs have a higher turnover, the self-employed simply do not meet these criteria. But wait, it's not over yet, they will fight with individual entrepreneurs and get to the self-employed," Alexey Petropolsky, CEO of the legal company URVISTA, told the resource.

So far, everything is moving towards the fact that banks, for whom it is unprofitable to service commercial transactions at rates for individuals, will in fact equalize the self-employed with individual entrepreneurs. "Apparently, credit institutions will adhere to the following policy: old service agreements will not be renewed, and new self-employed clients will be offered improved agreements," writes Banki.ru.

Upd. The Federal Tax Service has not received any reports of accounts of people paying professional income tax being blocked, a representative of the tax service told The Bell. According to her, banks can check whether a person is self-employed on the official website of the Federal Tax Service or through the official API. Self-employed people can provide information about their status and income to the bank themselves by generating certificates in the My Tax application or in their personal account on the tax service website.

Read also : Tax for the self-employed is a benefit for Russians: the main points from the interview with the head of the Federal Tax Service

Details. Since the beginning of this year, self-employed Russians can switch to a new tax regime in four experimental regions — Moscow, Moscow Region, Tatarstan, and Kaluga Region. The incentive to do so is a low tax rate of 4% for individuals and 6% for individual entrepreneurs and legal entities whose income should not exceed 2.4 million rubles per year. The self-employed are exempt from mandatory pension contributions and can only count on a social pension (in 2018 — 5,180 rubles).

Self-employed people can make payments and pay taxes through a special mobile cash register application called "My Tax". The Federal Tax Service explained that self-employed people are not required to notify the bank of their status and are not limited in how they receive income: in cash, by transfer to an account or to cards.

Why it matters. The experiment of the Federal Tax Service and the Ministry of Finance to bring about 15 million self-employed Russians who do not pay taxes out of the shadows looks like a liberal island in a sea of ​​regulatory repression. However, more than half of them did not intend to register and pay taxes anyway. For the rest, the difficulties of those who dared to become the first will not add to the trust in the state.