The Federal Tax Service (FTS) set an absolute record for additional taxes in 2022. The amount of additionally accrued payments (taxes and fees) amounted to a record 685.7 billion rubles, which is 81% higher than for the entire 2021 (378.6 billion rubles). The growth of tax penalties from Russians and businesses takes place against the backdrop of a record budget deficit caused by record government spending on the war with Ukraine. However, in the Federal Tax Service, this growth is associated with other reasons, RBC notes with reference to the department's report.
First of all, the tax service explains the increase in additional taxes by the abolition of tax breaks during the coronavirus pandemic, as well as a change in the paradigm of on-site inspections. Now they are carried out only in cases where the Federal Tax Service has reason to suspect that a legal entity or individual has actually used some kind of trick to reduce its tax burden. At the same time, the total number of checks in 2022 increased by 25% and exceeded 10,000. The Federal Tax Service explains such a significant increase by the fact that many checks that were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic were included in the statistics.
The number of checks has set a record since 2017. As the newspaper notes, in 2015-2017 the number of inspections was even higher, but the amount of additional taxes was almost two times lower. For comparison, in 2015-2019, the amount of additional accrued payments fluctuated around 300 billion rubles a year, in the covid 2020 this amount fell below 200 billion, and in 2021 it recovered and grew to 378.6 billion.
The increase in additional accrued payments to the Federal Tax Service is explained by a change in approach: now the audit plan includes companies that have tax evasion schemes. The most popular ones are related to VAT evasion and the deliberate involvement of one-day firms and "technical" companies in the document flow. With the introduction of automated control systems of the Federal Tax Service, it has become much easier to record such cases, the representative of the department notes.
The change in approach has improved the quality of inspections – now they bring more money to the budget. If in 2018 the average accrued additional payment for a legal entity was 17.3 million rubles, then in 2020 it increased to 24 million. In 2022, an absolute record was set – 47 million rubles, and taking into account non-tax payments even higher – 72 million. notes that only 5% of audits do not end with additional taxes, this figure has been stable for the last 4 years.
The experts interviewed by the publication recognize the paradigm shift on the part of the Federal Tax Service, but they associate it not with the desire to improve the efficiency of the service, but with the need to increase budget revenues, which faced a record deficit against the backdrop of rising social and military spending.