Status of self-employed individual. Trends of legislation development

The purpose of writing a research paper is to analyse certain provisions of legislative acts that establish certain elements of the legal status of a self-employed individual as a payer of tax on professional income. The article investigates the main legislative and law enforcement problems associated with the impossibility of inter-branch unification of the category of “self-employed individuals”, resulting in terminological errors and conflicts in the application of the provisions of sectoral legislation in respect of individuals who are payers of tax on professional income. It is postulated that there are contradictions between separate legal sources and acts of law enforcement in determining the legal content of the categories “self-employment” and “self-employed individual”. It is hypothesized that the main reason for the identified legal flaws is the initial limitation of the scope of application of the category of “self-employed individual” to the framework of tax legislation with the subsequent transformation of this legal status into an intersectoral one. The few judicial practice formed on the subject of the research is studied. Problematic aspects of the application of the provisions of civil legislation in relation to self-employed individuals are identified. Two author’s approaches to elimination of the revealed legal uncertainty connected with fixing the legal status of self-employed individuals are offered.