Yesterday, the Federal Tax Service (FTS) dealt with a large number of visitors to its website who were trying out its new service – a feature that allows them to find out what they owe in taxes in their “personal accounts.” However, some visitors received information that they should not have been allowed to access.
In the “personal account” feature introduced yesterday on the FTS website, Russian citizens can find information on their tax arrears and fees on three types of taxes: property tax, transport tax, and land tax. In order to do this, visitors must fill out a form with their personal tax ID number and full name. If they have any tax arrears, then they may print out a payment receipt directly from the site. According to Vitaly Kolesnikov, Head of the FTS’s Information Technology Department, Sberbank agreed to accept the payments and some citizens have already paid their debts. A representative from Sberbank was not able to comment on this at the time of printing.
The “personal account” feature was created to help taxpayers avoid problems that may arise from late payments, such as when they are travelling abroad, since such information can usually only be obtained by going directly to a tax inspectorate, explained an FTS spokesman.
On Monday, hundreds of thousands of visitors used the new service and problems with the site arose because of the high traffic it received, Kolesnikov explained. The service is not fail-safe: for example, some citizens received information on the tax arrears and fees on their income tax. Kolesnikov says this was a technical malfunction, since data on one’s personal income tax was not supposed to be available yet.
The FTS is planning to further develop this service – by fall of next year, citizens will also be able to find out about accrued taxes well before they are due, Kolesnikov says. Companies will be able to find out about their taxes via the Internet, but only if they are willing to give out their accounting records over via electronic means; currently, 1.045 million companies are doing this (according to FTS’s data, 4.232 million were registered to do this as of December 1.)
Tax inspectorates are required to notify taxpayers about overdue taxes in a timely manner, but this does not always happen, tax experts note. Oftentimes, citizens don’t receive notifications at all or else receive a request to pay taxes on property that they don’t own, tax consultants say.
Overdue taxes are recovered from citizens in court, but in a simplified procedure (by court order), court marshals, who can restrict the debtor’s movements and ability to travel outside the country if they have overdue taxes, are effectively enforcing court decisions without trials. According to the FTS’s information on court marshals, 60,500 debtors were prevented from travelling abroad in the first five months of 2009.
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