MOSCOW, February 22 The Government Commission on Legislative Activities approved a draft law on the return from January 1, 2024 of the rights to use the simplified taxation system (STS) for jewelers working with silver, the press service of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation reported .
«The bill was supported by the Government Commission on Legislative Activities (CLA), taking into account the finalization. The adoption of the document will allow organizations and individual entrepreneurs for the production and/or sale of silver jewelry to apply the simplified tax system. Those organizations and individual entrepreneurs who express a desire to switch to it from January 1, 2024 , you will need to notify the tax authority of your transition before March 31, 2024. The right to apply a patent and an automated simplified tax system (AUSN) is expected to be granted from January 1, 2025,” the message says.
Since companies that switch to the simplified tax system are exempt from paying VAT, the bill provides for a procedure for restoring VAT amounts previously accepted for deduction, including on goods or raw materials purchased but not sold. “This will avoid difficulties for taxpayers in calculating VAT for the period from January 1, 2024 until the moment of filing a notification about the transition to the simplified tax system,” the ministry explained.
Deputy Minister of Finance Alexey Sazanov last October, commenting on the problems of jewelers working with silver, said that the Russian Ministry of Finance is working on changes in tax regimes for them and hopes that from January 1, 2024 these changes will come into force.
Special tax regimes for the jewelry industry, including the simplified taxation system and the patent taxation system (PTS), ceased to operate in Russia from January 1, 2023. Sazanov explained that the abolition of the simplified tax system for jewelers was associated with the abolition of VAT on the purchase of gold bars for individuals. The corresponding law was adopted in March 2022.
For many jewelers working with silver, the problem has become the administrative burden that falls on small businesses when working under the general taxation system (OSNO) — the need to maintain full-fledged accounting records, which is not required when working under special tax regimes, notes the executive director of the Guild of Russian Jewelers Vladimir Zboykov.
«»In conditions where SMEs in the jewelry sector are forced today to use a general taxation system, the possibility of using special tax regimes when working with jewelry and other products, even if only made of silver, is a solution to the issue for those who work on OSNO seems unacceptably complex,” Zboykov explained.
In addition, according to him, the tax burden on a small jewelry business when switching to OSNO in the first year of operation reaches 30%, which is several times higher than the tax burden on a large jewelry business.