For organizations and individual entrepreneurs, Federal Legislation provides the opportunity to choose a taxation system: general or simplified (STS). The latter presupposes a special procedure for paying taxes and keeping records.
Types of simplified tax system
In order for an enterprise to receive the right to apply the simplified tax system, it must meet the following conditions:
- have an annual income of no more than 60 million rubles;
- the number of employees cannot exceed 100 people;
- the amount of fixed assets must be less than 100 million rubles;
- the organization should not have branches;
- the share of third-party participants (shareholders) should not exceed 25%.
The advantages of the simplified tax system
Organizations and individual entrepreneurs benefit from the transition to the simplified tax system, because at the same time they get the opportunity not to pay taxes provided for by the general taxation system - they will be replaced by one tax from the simplified tax system:
- income tax;
- on property;
- for added value.
To switch to the simplified tax system, you must submit an application to the tax inspectorate simultaneously with the registration of the enterprise or at the end of the calendar year. In the second case, the simplified tax system will start operating from the beginning of next year. There are certain deadlines for this procedure, which should be clarified in advance with the Federal Tax Service Inspectorate.
STS rates and required documentation
For the "simplified" it is possible to select the object of taxation, which must be indicated in the application. If the object of taxation is "income", the tax rate will be 6%. In this case, it is necessary to keep only the registration of income: you need to have a cash book and a register of incoming business transactions. It is not necessary to keep full-fledged financial statements, the balance sheet is not required. Of course, this does not mean that the firm does not need an accountant. This only means that the fiscal authorities will not check where the legal entity spends its profits. The simplified tax system does not exempt from the submission of current reporting to the Pension Fund, the Social Insurance Fund, statistical bodies, the payment of personal income tax from the wages of employees and annual reporting.
When an organization or individual entrepreneur chooses the object of taxation "income minus expenses", the tax rate will be 15%. In this case, strict accounting records are maintained; it is allowed to reduce taxable profit only for those expenses that are provided for by tax legislation. During tax and audit inspections, inspectors always carefully check the correctness of the execution of cash expenditure documents and the validity of reducing the base for taxation, therefore it is especially important to observe cash discipline: incoming and outgoing cash documents, contracts and invoices for payment, documentation on settlements with counterparties must be in perfect order … To ensure full-fledged accounting, an organization on the STS must have an accountant on the staff, since the well-being and profitability of the company, timely submission of reports and the absence of problems with fiscal authorities largely depend on this.
