The "tempest in a teacup" recently erupted in RuNet over the collection of income tax when making any transfers between individuals using bank cards has subsided. To a large extent, this was facilitated by the official refutation of these rumors made on June 29, 2018 by the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Budget and Taxes I. Guseva. But to believe that all non-cash payments between citizens will remain out of sight of the tax authorities, it would not be logical and very frivolous.
The service for inter-card transfers of funds by individuals appeared in our country several years ago and quickly began to gain popularity. According to the Central Bank, over the past two years, Russians have started withdrawing much less cash. At the same time, we began to use cards more often not only for settlements in retail chains that have terminals or in online stores, but also when settling various kinds of financial relationships with each other.
The active use of settlements between individuals with the help of plastic cards - the so-called p2p transfers or card to cards - have led to increased interest from the fiscal authorities in cashless transfers and has led to a tightening of control over actions on the cards of individuals.
Who has the right to control bank accounts
When making non-cash transfers, credit organizations are not obliged to notify the tax authorities of each payment made by their clients. Equally, the tax authorities do not have the right to consider, at their discretion, this or that amount received by a citizen as his income subject to taxation. But there are transactions that are suspicious from the point of view of bankers or tax authorities, in relation to control over which banking organizations and tax services are endowed with certain powers.
1. In pursuance of the law on combating money laundering, credit institutions are required to control the legality of funds appearing on clients' accounts. Upon revealing such facts as depositing a large amount in cash, a large transfer or regular receipt of funds, the bank has the right to demand information from the account holder about the source of the money.
If the client does not confirm the legality of transactions with funds, the account may be blocked. The movement of cash flows is frozen until the fiscal authorities make sure that these funds are not obtained by criminal means and are not income from illegal business activities. In addition, banks must inform Rosinformmonitoring about receipts to the accounts of citizens in the following cases:
- when the transaction amount exceeds 600 thousand rubles;
- if payments are of a regular nature and receipts amount to more than 100 thousand rubles per month;
- the funds were received from the sale of real estate in the amount of more than 3 million rubles.
There are no other requirements for credit institutions (such as the transfer of information to the Federal Tax Service on movements in personal accounts of individuals) in the legislation.
2. Money transfers from one bank card to another are not subject to personal income tax, regardless of the amount, if they are not payment for the goods submitted, work performed, services rendered. That is, transfers of individuals from card to card should be differentiated. It is not possible to automatically consider them as taxable income and charge tax on the amount of money transferred from a card to another card.
All chains of transactions are monitored using artificial intelligence operating on a joint platform of the Central Bank and the Federal Tax Service. Supervisors have the ability to track any financial transactions and identify payments that, in their opinion, are suspicious. At the same time, tax authorities have the right to inquire banks about the status of any account of an individual (bank card, cash or metal account, deposit and deposit, electronic wallet, etc.).
However, the FTS can initiate an audit of the account only if the tax services have a reasonable assumption that the taxpayer has some undeclared source of income. For example, they were approached by a citizen who does not have a certain level of official income, who claims a property tax deduction in connection with the purchase of housing. Or, according to the tax authorities, an individual is a lessor, but does not report the income received to the tax office.
If the so-called “uncleared from personal income tax” income is found, certain sanctions will be applied to the citizen. But this is possible only after a cameral check of the correctness of the payment of personal income tax is carried out in relation to this individual. The tax authorities, having requested and considered the explanations of the citizen, must establish that the fact of making a profit really took place. And tax evasion must be proven in court.
Thus, tax accrual on the unclear receipt on the citizen's card cannot be made. But those individuals in respect of whom a tax audit was carried out and the case was referred to the courts, the tax will be additionally assessed. If the taxpayer's guilt is proven, he must pay income tax (13% of hidden income), as well as penalties and 20% of the amount of unpaid tax in the form of a penalty.
Transactions on accounts of individuals subject to the control of supervisory authorities
First of all, accounts with frequent deposit / withdrawal of cash can be subject to tax inspection. The FTS will also be interested in regular (once a day, week, month, etc.) receipts of the same amounts, regardless of the amount of the transfer (for example, payments for leased property). If an organization transfers money to an employee from its current account outside the scope of the salary project, or does not indicate the purpose of the transferred amounts (business expenses, travel expenses, dividends, etc.), this is also a reason why the tax authorities will ask for explanations from the owner of the plastic card. The FTS will pay special attention to persons who receive payment on cards for their personal services, but do not pay taxes on this income. These include people with so-called "informal employment", namely:
- freelancers and teleworkers who do not enter into civil contracts or employment contracts;
- self-employed citizens (tutors, nannies, nurses, housekeepers, etc.), whose work is not formalized in any way;
- small entrepreneurs (home-based confectioners, hairdressers, cosmetologists and other representatives of the sphere of personal services) who carry out their activities without state registration.
Financially limited citizens (bankrupts, debtors, unemployed) will also get into the field of view of the tax authorities, on whose personal accounts the movement of funds will be found.
Other categories of individuals who receive transfers to bank cards can also pretend to be biased by the tax authorities. For example,
- the owner of any foreign assets;
- someone who lives abroad and receives a salary from a Russian employer;
- participant in major transactions with housing or cars;
- the seller of his own real estate; the landlord of housing, garage and other property;
- an individual - a seller of an online store;
- an individual entrepreneur who works without opening a current account;
- a gambling participant who has received a prize;
- lottery prize winner;
- recipient of a gift, etc.
Thus, a reason to think about paying income tax is for people whose profit meets the characteristics of taxable income, as well as for those who use p2p transfers as a payment service. Ordinary citizens who receive non-taxable income on cards (debt repayment, intra-family payment, benefits, scholarships, alimony, etc.), this does not affect. But the verification mechanism is far from perfect, and you can get an invitation from the tax inspector with the requirement to account for almost any transfer between individuals. Therefore, it is worth stocking up not only with endurance and patience, but also with documents confirming that the money received is not income. They can be:
- IOUs, if it is a loan repayment (the amount is more than 10 thousand rubles in accordance with Art. 808 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation requires a written registration of financial relations);
- donation documents (both from relatives and from other people);
- certificates of payments received from the employer, in addition to wages;
- explanations in cases where it is a joint small purchase, reimbursement of personal expenses, etc.;
- a screenshot from the computer screen (when selling personal items through advertisements through sales sites, etc.);
- explanatory of the payer about the purpose of the payment.
In the meantime, a single platform of the Central Bank and the Federal Tax Service for accounting for all non-cash payments will work and the mechanism for detecting the facts of citizens receiving unrecorded income will be debugged, in order to avoid possible misunderstandings during tax audits, it is worth adhering to two basic rules.
- When making a transfer to a card to an individual, the sender must take full responsibility for specifying information in the "purpose of payment" field. It is she who serves as one of the signs that this amount is either considered non-taxable income, or is subject to personal income tax.
- The recipient who withdraws the funds received on the card from an ATM should have an answer in mind to the question: “What can I tell the tax inspector about the source of this receipt? How are you ready to substantiate it in documents?"
