The Federal Tax Service has reduced business inspections and additional charges, but increased their amount.

Last year, after about 5 thousand inspections (only 3% of them did not reveal any violations), the Federal Tax Service additional tax assessments amounted to over 301 billion rubles. The dynamics compared to 2022 has fallen sharply – by one and a half times and by 31%, respectively. However, the quantity is being replaced by “quality”: the average amount of additional charges per inspection increased by 31% and amounted to 61 million rubles per company. In some industries the dynamics showed over 100%. In particular, for legal entities in the field of oil and gas production – plus 253% – up to Br1.8 billion, for manufacturers of machinery and equipment – plus 171%. Additional charges for wholesale and retail trade, where foreigners are among the shareholders, increased by 37%. If almost 47 trillion rubles of taxes were collected in 2023, this year’s plan is 52.5 trillion rubles. At the same time, for the current January-February budget figures have already been exceeded by 4%. The leadership of the Federal Tax Service emphasized that this year the increase in the collection of personal income tax should grow by 75%, income tax – by 5%, VAT – by 2%.

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Does it make sense for businesses to sue the FTS? Clarification of relations can take place in the form of working commissions, in the pre-trial order or already in court. At the first stage, the amount of claims from the tax authorities is often overstated. For example, after the director of a legal entity has been summoned to a commission, they report an underpayment of VAT by 5 million rubles due to fixed gaps with counterparties. There is indeed a gap – someone has underpaid tax in the chain. However, nothing is charged to the counterparties, as they have small cash turnovers. In such a situation, it is most likely desirable to seek justice in court. Although in 90% of cases the courts side with the Federal Tax Service.

The situation is as follows: in 55% of cases business voluntarily pays additional taxes after communication with inspectors and in 45% – after field or desk audits and issuance of the act. If you do not pay voluntarily, there are options. The most negative is the appointment of an on-site inspection – thematic or comprehensive. Most likely, they will find additional underpayments or stop at the same amount. The second option – inspectors can spend three years inducing voluntary additional taxation, after which the statute of limitations will expire. The third option – filing a revised declaration with additional tax payment. But in this case a new desk audit is possible.

If the company or its counterparties receive requests for documents, invited to a working meeting in the IFTS – this is a reason to think about a possible audit. If the fiscal authorities at the pre-inspection analysis established the amount of underpayment, they are very likely to make a decision on the inspection.

It is also worth recalling that the Federal Law “On Employment in the Russian Federation” came into force on January 1. It legalized interdepartmental commissions. Entrepreneurs are summoned to the tax inspection, where representatives of the local administration, labor inspection, prosecutor’s office, Social Fund gather. They ask questions about low pay, part-time employment and, accordingly, insufficient amounts of payroll taxes. Many business entities are forced to meet their needs. They are informed that it is necessary to pay employees not less than the minimum wage, and preferably not less than the industry average. The FTS monitors this issue with the help of the ASC DFL – an automated system for controlling personal income.

How does the FTS look for targets for inspections? Basically by three methods. The first is through the GNP-Selection program, which monitors companies’ financial results (profit, revenue, tax deductions). The second is the Federal Register of Presumed Beneficial Owners (FRPOB). Businesses applying VAT deductions with dubious counterparties are entered there. Third, companies are included in the audit plan at the request of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. There are a number of grounds on which the Federal Tax Service may order an audit. These include large volumes of tax deductions, evasion by changing the legal address for registration in another inspectorate, cooperation with one-day firms, lower than the industry average tax burden and salary of employees, indication of losses for two or more years.

Individual legal entities and IEs are practically not threatened by inspections. Thus, until March 2025 a moratorium has been introduced for accredited IT-companies and founders and sole proprietors mobilized for “SWO”. In addition, the tax authorities are almost not interested in small businesses, which are unlikely to be charged at least 30 million rubles.

Source: https://antifinrazvedka.club/fns-sokratila-proverki-biznesa-i-donachisleniya-no-uvelichila-ih-razmer/