“Kommersant”: the State Duma introduced a bill on a single tax payment for business from 2023
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Business in Russia will start paying taxes in a new way from January 1, 2023. A bill has been introduced to the State Duma on the introduction of a compulsory single tax payment for companies and individual entrepreneurs (IE), which will simplify the procedure for paying fees, Kommersant writes.
In November, the president signed a “framework” law that provided businesses with the opportunity to use this mechanism at will from 2022. The new bill proposes to make this method of paying taxes uncontested and regulates its work. The initiative was prepared by the State Duma Committee on Budget and Taxes together with the Ministry of Finance and the Federal Tax Service (FTS) with the participation of business associations. The tool will be tested in business for six months from July 1 to December 31, 2022. Companies and individual entrepreneurs can apply to participate in the experiment from April.
Currently, when paying fees, entrepreneurs have to fill out many payments with various details. The deputies proposed to create a single tax account (ENS) in the Treasury for each company and individual entrepreneur. Then businessmen will be able to simply deposit money into this account indicating the amount and TIN, and the tax office will distribute the funds itself in the necessary areas. Companies and individual entrepreneurs will be exempted from the obligation to clarify the type of payment, the term for its payment, belonging to the budget, and so on. First of all, the system will write off the amount against the payment of arrears, then for current liabilities, then – penalties and fines.
Business representatives will be able to obtain detailed information on the accrual and payment of taxes online. The bill states that a single balance of settlements will be formed on a single account, which will exclude the appearance of arrears for some taxes and overpayments for others. Money in the account that did not go towards payment of fees can be returned or paid taxes for another person by submitting an application.
Another innovation is uniform tax payment deadlines (20th and 25th of the month). Deputies believe that such a measure would simplify the payment calendar for business, but Tatyana Glazneva, senior manager of the tax and legal department at Deloitte CIS, disagrees with this statement. “Reducing the time for preparing tax reports is unlikely to please business representatives,” she explained. Svetlana Bessarab, a member of the State Duma Committee on Labor, Social Policy and Veterans Affairs, also noted in December that the ENS would be very convenient for the self-employed.
