Special tax regimes as a tool to support small and medium-sized businesses

Today, small and medium entrepreneurship is one of the main factors of economic development not only in the Russian Federation, but also in the world.

In the economic development of the Russian Federation, small and medium businesses play a large role and in order to support it the state has developed special tax regimes (STR).

STRs are described as a type of taxation that allows businesses and individuals not to pay certain taxes.

In the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, the following STRs are distinguished:

• -    Unified taxation system for agricultural enterprises ;¹

• -    the simplified taxation system(USN) ;

• -    tax system in the form of a single tax on imputed income for certain types of activities(ENVD) ;

• -    taxation system for the implementation of production sharing agreements (ESKHN);

• -    patent taxation system ¹.

The total amount of taxes received from organizations of small and mediumsized businesses that use STR, can be viewed in Table 12.

Table 1

"The amount of tax revenues from organizations applying SNR to the budget of the Russian Federation for 2015-2017."

Indicators	2015	2016	2017
USN	323 053 279	357 669 652	436 752 326
ENVD	78 651 760	72 715 240	69 869 934
ESKHN	9 586 628	11 367 466	11 192 723

As we see from the table of revenues for the Simplified tax system, they increase every year. In 2017 compared to 2016, tax revenues under the Simplified tax system increased by 22.1%, while taxes on the Unified agricultural tax decreased by 1.5%. decreased by 3.9%.

Consider these tax regimes in more detail. If small and medium business organizations apply one of these regimes, then they are exempted from certain taxes, such as; income tax, corporate property tax, Value Added Tax, personal property tax.3

The single agricultural tax is regulated by Chapter 26.1 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation and is intended only for organizations and individual entrepreneurs who produce agricultural products.

In order to become a taxpayer of a single agricultural tax, it is necessary that the proceeds from the sale of agricultural products and farmed fish be at least 70%.

Do not have the right to switch to the ECKHN:

• 1)    Companies and individual entrepreneurs that produce excisable goods.

• 2)    Companies and entrepreneurs whose activities are related to gambling.

• 3)    Budget organizations⁴

Enterprises that pay USN are exempt from paying the following taxes: organizations have the right not to pay the organization tax, VAT and property tax on organizations, and individual entrepreneurs - the tax on personal income, property tax on individuals and VAT.

The simplified tax system is designed to reduce the tax burden of enterprises. USN helps organizations not only reduce the tax rate on financial results, but also exempts from certain types of taxes. For example: corporate income tax, personal income tax, VAT.

Article 346.12 states that organizations have the right to switch to the USN:

• -    for 9 months of the year, where the organization submitted an application for translation, the revenue is not more than 112.5 million rubles.

• -    when the number of staff is not more than 100 people.

Enterprises as well as individual entrepreneurs who use this mode do not issue invoices to their customers, and this is not beneficial for companies that pay VAT, since they will not be able to receive a VAT deduction.2

• -    income;

• -    income reduced by the amount of expenses.

A flat tax on imputed income is a regime to which companies engaged in strictly defined types of activities can transfer. Namely: services related to consumer services, veterinary services, auto repair shops can also be transferred to ENVD, organizations that transport passengers, etc. A more complete list of activities is specified in article 346.12 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation.

Do not have the right to go to the ENVD of the organization if:

• 1)    The number of staff more than 100 people

• 2)    Enterprises in which the share of other enterprises is more than 25%

• 3)    Educational institutions

• 4)    Health care facilities

The main distinguishing feature of this regime is that the amount of tax deductions is not related to real income, but to a physical indicator.

The object of taxation of this regime is the so-called imputed income, but not actually received. To calculate it, they use the value of the basic income, corrective coefficients. The value of the basic income is set to be uniform for the whole country3

The patent tax system is a fairly new system. It began operations on January 1, 2013.

The peculiarity of this system is that the individual entrepreneur buys a patent from the state for carrying out any activity, instead of paying taxes.

Only individual entrepreneurs who have a staff of no more than 15 people and annual revenues of 60 million rubles can obtain such a patent.

An individual entrepreneur can reduce the cost of a patent by the amount of contributions to the extra-budgetary fund, but not more than 50% of these contributions.

As we can see, from this article, for small and medium-sized businesses, the state provides special conditions in the form of tax regimes that allow small organizations to develop in the economy of the Russian Federation.