Self-employed people are being asked to move abroad – Kommersant

The Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) proposes to increase the annual income threshold for the self-employed. According to the association, the figure (2.4 million rubles per year) needs to be increased due to accumulated inflation and growing demand for the services of such specialists from consumers and businesses. While services that provide services to the self-employed support this idea, for some experts it looks risky due to a lack of data on the income of this category of workers.

The threshold for the maximum annual income level for the self-employed needs to be increased, as follows from the package of proposals and comments of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs to the bill on the main directions of tax policy for 2024–2026. Let us recall that since 2019, Russia has had a special tax regime for the self-employed, within which they can provide paid services, deducting 4% of income to the budget when working with individuals and 6% when working with companies. Citizens with an income of no more than 2.4 million rubles can take advantage of this regime. in year.

As follows from a recent analytical note by RANEPA, the majority of self-employed people are engaged in trade and repairs (60%), selling products of their own production (12%) and providing educational services (10%). The majority provide services only to individuals, 8% – only to legal entities, another 13% work with both the former and the latter. According to the Federal Tax Service (FTS), the number of self-employed people in the Russian Federation has already exceeded 8 million people, their total income is more than 2.5 trillion rubles. In total, they generated more than 1.4 billion checks with an average amount of 1.8 thousand rubles.

As the RUIE points out, with the introduction of the self-employed regime in 2019 (and an income ceiling of 2.4 million rubles per year), the average salary in the country was at the level of 41–47 thousand rubles. At the same time, in 2023 it increased to 67–80 thousand rubles, if we rely on Rosstat data. “That is, the average income of a working citizen increased by 60–70%, inflation was about 40%, and the income limit for the self-employed did not change,” states the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. Rosstat indeed recorded in August 2023 the average monthly salary in the Russian Federation at 69.4 thousand rubles; in the last year alone it has nominally increased by 15.1%. In the future, according to the forecast of the Ministry of Economy, wage growth will continue, although it will slow down by approximately one and a half to two times. An additional factor in the demand for the services of the self-employed will be a shortage of full-time employees: as follows from the “Main Directions of the Unified State Monetary Policy for 2024 and the Period of 2025 and 2026” of the Bank of Russia, the shortage of labor in Russia intensified in the third quarter of 2023, updating the maximum since the beginning of 2020.

As Artem Kireev, CEO of Welldone, notes, given the fact that the self-employed most often cover the urgent needs of the employer, their wages are usually higher than the services of specialists of a comparable profile. “On average, in those industries where the services of the self-employed are most in demand, the salary of a full-time specialist can be 100–120 thousand rubles. per month. Accordingly, self-employed people can earn 300 thousand rubles. per month, taking into account the “empty” labor market. Therefore, the income threshold for them needs to be increased to 3–3.5 million rubles,” he says. “The status of self-employed allows the population to earn money legally; more and more services and solutions are appearing on the market for quick and convenient job search. Taking into account these factors, as well as inflation, increasing the income limit for the self-employed may be a logical solution, from which everyone benefits: workers who will be able to earn more “on white”, and companies that can attract performers for one-time orders, and the state, which is interested in reducing gray income schemes and legalizing labor,” says the marketing director of the Ventra Go! platform. Anna Larionova. It seems that the topic is also being commented on by the company YouDo.com: according to its experts, in the next three years the number of self-employed may reach 10–15% of the country’s working population, so, in their opinion, “raising the threshold is an expected event that will affect the market exclusively positively”.

However, according to Andrei Shubin, executive director of Opora Rossii, before making a decision to increase the income ceiling for the self-employed, it is necessary to analyze the statistics of their earnings and understand whether most of them have really approached the current limit. “Without this, it is strange to change the parameters of a project that itself is still experimental,” he notes.

Anastasia Manuilova