MOSCOW, March 12 Being in the «gray» zone for paying taxes in Russia is now difficult and impractical, sooner or later you will have to get out of the shadows, especially bloggers, said an expert from the Center for Financial Literacy of the NIFI of the Ministry of Finance Russian Olga Daineko.
The Moscow Central Committee of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation on Tuesday announced the initiation of a criminal case on tax evasion against fitness blogger Valeria Chekalina, known under the pseudonym Lerchek, and her husband. According to investigators, from July 2020 to July 2022, Chekalina, being an individual entrepreneur and using a simplified taxation system with an income limit of 150 million rubles a year, did not switch to the standard system, although her income exceeded this limit. The total amount of unpaid taxes to the treasury is estimated at 300 million rubles.
According to Daineko, the digitalization of the tax system and the transformation of legislation dictate new rules of the game, especially for those who work in the online space — they also need to pay taxes on their income. Discussing why it is necessary to pay taxes to bloggers, Daineko noted that, firstly, paying taxes is a constitutional obligation, and not paying is equal to breaking the law, and breaking the law is fraught with punishment (from fines to imprisonment).
The expert reports that taxes allow you to have social guarantees: medicine, education, pensions, social benefits, as well as improve the infrastructure of the place of residence and much more. At the same time, there is another, no less important aspect — now it is becoming more and more difficult not to pay taxes.
“The “mercantile issue” is to be in the “gray” zone … everything is more difficult and in most cases inappropriate: monitoring offers on pages in social networks, identifying illegal business, control purchases through Internet resources, the ability to control the movement of funds — all this complicates obtaining tax-free income and threatens trouble,» explains Daineko.
The expert also notes that tax evasion is now unprofitable, and the tax system of the Russian Federation offers many options for legal optimization, and the tax burden is quite affordable. «The main thing is to choose a taxation system that is comfortable for you,» the expert adds. She points out that there are several options for bloggers to pay taxes: as an individual (personal income tax at a rate of 13% for residents or 30% for non-residents), as self-employed (professional income tax (PIT) at 4% and 6%) or as an individual entrepreneur (choose one of the three taxation systems: OSNO, STS (income or income minus expenses), or NPA).
According to Daineko, it is not worth putting off the legalization of activities on the back burner: sooner or later, responsibility will come for such carelessness — you can not only lose your source of income, but you will not be able to expand your activities, since large customers and brands prefer to work and pay officially. “Therefore, sooner or later, you will have to come out of the shadows and still have to decide,” she adds. In addition, according to the expert, the existing taxation options are not only a «heavy burden», but also the opportunity to receive preferences from the state from one's official taxpayer status.