Harm set, harm get! Federal Tax Service revealed tax arrears of almost a trillion rubles

Yevdokia Firsova

Experts' predictions that 40% of entrepreneurs simply will not be able to pay taxes by the end of the year are already starting to come true: in the first six months of 2020, the total amount of tax debt increased by 30% (or 229 billion rubles) and reached 929.5 billion rubles. And the unsettled arrears increased by 38% - up to 740.2 billion rubles.

Everything is natural: the paralysis of the economy tore up cash flows and left both people and business without income. Often for a business in such conditions, paying taxes in full is like signing yourself a death warrant. Attempts to evade at least postpone the onset of the end ... But where did such a large debt come from, after all, as part of the anti-crisis support, the authorities seem to have "canceled" taxes?

First, the initially declared "cancellation" in fact turned out to be a deferral and an installment plan - no one is going to forgive anyone for anything. And secondly, according to the established tradition, very few can use this support - due to the peculiarities of accounting for activities and the rules for obtaining a deferral. First, you need to delay payments, deprive yourself of the opportunity to participate in public procurement, and only then the tax authorities will consider the application. In Omsk, for example, only 27 enterprises were able to take advantage of the delay.

And no deferrals were provided for VAT at all. This tax gave almost a third of the total debt - 237.1 billion rubles, the arrears on it, compared with the beginning of the year, increased by 42%. Income tax arrears increased by exactly 1.5 times, to 101.1 billion rubles. And 80% of this amount is classified as arrears. The arrears on contributions to social funds increased by another 60% to 191.5 billion rubles - reducing the rate from 30% to 15% for small businesses did not help.

If everything is clear with ordinary business - it had a hard time, then a threefold increase in the debt of raw materials companies to 24.2 billion rubles in mineral extraction tax is surprising. The same Gazprom does not refuse to pay almost a record dividend for 2019 in the amount of 360.8 billion rubles, does not refuse to sell Power of Siberia 2, despite the fact that the first one does not really function.

More than half of the entire debt (493.5 billion rubles) was to go to the federal budget, which in July alone was missing 699 billion rubles. The Ministry of Finance and the Federal Tax Service urgently need to look for money. And here there are two main options: to put pressure on business and squeeze out the last juice, or to borrow money by placing government securities on the market.

Entrepreneurs do not even have the money to pay off loans. According to the Central Bank, delinquency on corporate loans as of August 1 reached a record 3.015 trillion rubles, which is a record 8.19% of total debt.

As for government loans, the problem is that no one wants to lend on current terms. The risks are high and the profitability is low. September is already underway, and the Ministry of Finance was able to borrow only 450 billion rubles in the third quarter against a quarterly plan of 1 trillion rubles. It would be possible to make concessions to creditors, give a bigger discount, but the authorities, unfortunately, chose the option of squeezing the juices out of business: in July, the number of on-site inspections by the Federal Tax Service has doubled compared to last year! Whether they collect money is not a fact. But budget holes will have to be plugged one way or another. And since the stocks of the NWF are like a sacred cow, entrepreneurs are about to have their funniest times. Judging by the path chosen, everyone, without exception, will have hard times.