Within the framework of the national business initiative for the improvement of the investment climate in Russia, the authorities approved a number of measures ("roadmaps") for simplifying and optimizing current business procedures. The Federal Tax Service (FTS) has been assigned to oversee implementation of the “Optimization of the Tax Administration” roadmap.
Among other goals of the document, for example, is a decrease in the time need to prepare and submit a tax declaration from the current 177 hours (which is not bad in itself) to 160 hours next year. By 2018, this number will drop to 150 hours per year. As a result, accompanying accounting expenses will decrease for small business.
To achieve this, the FTS intends to switch to a new publication schedule for new accounting standards for public access – announcing them not less than six months prior to standards coming into force. New forms and formats of tax accounting – will be announced not less than two months before coming into force. It is proposed that, if publication of a new standard was delayed, taxpayer’s responsibility for violating them will be eliminated.
According to the proposed amendments, deadlines for submitting all types of tax accounting will be placed at five days after the tax due date (10 days for electronic accounting).
From the beginning of 2013 the tax service began to publish agreements used by tax authorities for fiscal audits. Earlier these agreements carried a label “For Official Use Only”; now taxpayers themselves are able to check their tax declarations for errors and, using legitimate measures, conduct their business in such a way so as to avoid tax audits.
Moreover, the "roadmap" includes such measures as:
- The possibility to use an invoice form with an expanded list of requisites as a primary document;
- A transaction may be exempt from mandatory invoicing if a buyer is not subject to VAT;
- Legislative recognition of the right to accept as VAT deduction on invoices received prior to filing VAT declaration due by the 20th of the month following the fiscal period;
- Simplified procedures for invoicing agency transactions;
- Ability to file a consolidated credit invoice (already implemented);
- Intention to consider allowing declarative filing of VAT for a wider spectrum of taxpayers;
- Amending the Tax Code with a regulation on negligible errors in primary documents by analogy with requirements for invoices;
- Remove limitations for use of simplified taxation by companies with permanent representation offices;
- Implementing “preliminary tax clarification” – so called "horizontal monitoring:" large companies will be able to protect themselves from field audits and claims of tax authorities by explaining in advance planned transactions and tax payments. This procedure will be available for use by companies with annual income of at least 5 billion rubles, asset value of at least 10 billion rubles, and total tax amount exceeding 500 million rubles. In the future, this practice may be expanded and financial thresholds lowered.
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