Influence of tax policy on the financial condition of economic entities

The current state of economic development is characterized by the growth trends of qualitative and quantitative parameters of the business; it is becoming an increasingly complex organism that needs a structured form of financial relationship management to process the returning flow of information. Therefore, organizations need a developed financial policy, since it is this that makes a direct contribution to the profitability of the enterprise.

The financial policy of the organization should be developed taking into account the economic realities for the long term. However, in the course of planning their current activities, companies, in addition to many financial and economic problems, are forced to face such problems as taxes.

For business, taxes are both one of the prime costs of entrepreneurs, and a factor that reduces the final result of the activities of economic entities - profit.

Accordingly, throughout the entire history of mankind, the state, through its fiscal authorities, seeks to increase the burden on legal entities, with as many taxes as possible and with the highest tax rates, using both legal and illegal ways to evade the tax burden, to minimize their tax payments .

Tax evasion and underestimation of incomes in the field of entrepreneurship have become the main problems in the activities of the tax inspectorate.

First of all, these are tax rates. In the current economic situation, the rates are definitely overstated. This is explained by the fact that, when determining them, the possibilities of the production base were not taken into account. Tax rates were determined and set close to those in other countries, but it did not take into account the socio-economic status of these countries, especially the standard of living of the population. Therefore, such rates, which are quite acceptable and regularly perform their functions in a society with a high level of well-being, do not correspond to the taxable base.

In modern realities, the attitude of society to the problem of paying taxes is ambiguous. On the one hand, taxes are the main source of state income and budget revenues, on the other hand, there is an opinion in society that the state intentionally overstates tax rates, thereby reducing the incomes of its citizens.

In a civilized state, taxation policy should optimally combine both legal systems - the legal one, which is obliged to protect public interests, and the system of customary law, corresponding to the private interest of the market entity.

In modern conditions, the outlined economic growth in Russia leads to activation of not only legal, but also illegal, shadow business, which, of course, creates favorable conditions for increasing its turnover. Often the shadow economy develops at a faster pace than the official one, and the damage to the state is estimated at tens of billions of rubles annually.

From an economic point of view, the shadow economy arises due to the underdevelopment of market relations, the low level of legal and tax culture. These are activities of entities that are not registered as taxpayers or as a legal entity in areas of economic activity not prohibited by applicable law, using illegal employment in order to completely conceal all types of income from taxation.

The shadow component in all sectors of the economy is reflected in different ways. Regardless of what people earn, they all need goods and services. Receiving a salary in an envelope, you can deceive the state for a certain share of taxes it charges, but in the end this extra money will go to the real economy. Despite the widespread belief that a large shadow economy adversely affects the valuation of stocks, companies that focus on the domestic market actually benefit from the availability of additional financial resources in the system. It is therefore not surprising that many retailers operating in emerging markets are experiencing a boom, which leads to a sharp increase in the prices of their shares.

Companies can not only benefit from this situation, but also maintain high corporate governance in such conditions. While exporting companies often depend on political ties, are state-owned or are subject to tight regulation, companies that meet domestic demand are less exposed to these risks, and therefore often have strong corporate governance and attractive growth models.

The main reason for the creation and development of the shadow economy is the magnitude of the tax burden on the enterprise. Enterprises go to the shadow sector of the economy in order not to pay taxes.

At the same time, if we evaluate this indicator, correlating with the price level, effective demand, the value of other non-tax revenues, the non-payment crisis, and the catastrophic shortage of working capital, this level turns out to be very high. As you know, a tax exemption of over 50% deprives enterprises of an incentive to conduct business in general and to legally develop production in particular.

The severity of the tax burden worries various agents of economic activity:

• -    the state - as a subject of management of economic activities on its territory and the redistribution of income from it (in the form of taxes) in favor of other elements of state and social life;

• -    organizations and enterprises - as objects of managing influence of the state and subjects of their own entrepreneurial activity, ensuring the formation of a source of entrepreneurial income and a corresponding taxable base;

• -    workers - as participants in business activities that provide for themselves means of subsistence and development and are participants in public life.

Each of the above-mentioned subjects is concerned with tax issues from their own point of view; therefore, potential alternatives to the current tax system are different. The state compares the burden of the tax burden with the tax burden in other countries; the population compares the profitability of their labor (assessment of their skills, skills and intelligence) with the assessment of similar labor in other companies or in conditions of “shadow” employment, or, in extreme cases, abroad. For enterprises - business entities the most alternative so far is a “shadow” (gray) business in the form of “unaccounted” income / costs or an “offshore” business.

At the same time, the degree of “feasibility” of the current tax burden of enterprises is estimated differently by different experts.

On the one hand, almost all experts who assess the investment climate of the state consider that taxation of the real sector of the economy is too burdensome. It is a depressing effect on the manufacturer, who can work without loss, as a rule, only in the conditions of concealing their income from tax accounting.

According to existing estimates, the total taxes levied on employees as individuals and on the enterprise as a legal entity, reach 70-75% of the amounts earned. According to other calculations, the tax burden of the manufacturer is even heavier.

There are, however, opinions that taxes are not so burdensome. As a rule, they are based on using tax burden indicators as a share in GDP.

All given opinions are true in their own way. To address the issue of combining the right in the framework of a single conceptual approach to building the state's tax system, it is necessary to express the tax burden in quantitative terms with respect to a certain integral indicator. In addition, a factor that can link the correctness of these opposing points of view may be an approach that evaluates the fairness of the tax burden of business entities. Here we can distinguish "external" and "internal" justice.

“External” justice is the justice of a state, a subject that directly has a direct impact on entrepreneurship; The criteria for such equity lie in comparing the tax burden with that in countries that are comparable in terms of basic economic criteria and obtaining the desired economic results in a managed economy.

“Internal” justice is the creation of equivalent conditions of taxation and development for enterprises with different economic structure of expenditures.

All this inevitably leads to the proliferation of various sophisticated ways of evading taxes and other obligatory payments.

Therefore, before improving the tax system, it is generally necessary to conduct a thorough scientific analysis and proper division of each mandatory payment for the intended purpose. This will allow you to make informed decisions and ultimately make a worthy contribution to business development, taking into account both individual and public interests.

The creative process of transformations in this area should be directed to exploring the possibility of correct perception and optimality of tax calculations in practice, while improving the methods of tax audits.

One of the significant and at the same time paradoxical reasons for understating the taxable base, non-observance of the procedure and deadlines for payment of taxes and other obligatory payments to the budget is a complex mechanism for calculating them and the taxpayer's inability to independently fulfill their tax obligations. He would like to strictly follow the letter of the law, but inadvertently becomes a violator of tax discipline.

Despite various improvements and improvements in this direction, all the same, the materials are presented in their original form, sometimes difficult for the ordinary taxpayer to understand.

Nevertheless, the government is seeking to improve the tax system and more efficiently redistribute the tax burden in order to minimize the sector of the shadow economy and, as a result, the outflow of capital from the country.

Provision is made to simplify the procedure for obtaining permission to change the deadline for the payment of taxes and fees (the provision of installments, deferments, an investment tax credit). In addition, a number of tax incentive measures have been proposed to support investment activity in the economy.

With all the heights achieved in tax administration, the existing tax system of the country does not provide conditions for the development of innovative business and an increase in the level of its own production, not related to the exploitation of natural resources. And the tax burden at equal tax rates remains unequal for different types of entrepreneurial activity, which directly affects the development of small and medium-sized businesses in general.

Unfortunately, objectively, many businesses can not bear the existing tax burden. For them, the choice is limited: either stay in the shadows, or stop their activities. Therefore, one of the fundamental methods of dealing with the shadow sector of the economy is to significantly reduce the tax burden by drastically reducing the rates for the main types of taxes. However, this may lead to a reduction in tax revenues and an increase in the budget deficit, which will inevitably entail a decline in the country's economic growth.