VAT picked up an article – Economics – Kommersant

The draft law on the introduction of a separate article “Fraud in the tax sphere” into the Criminal Code was discussed on Thursday in the Federation Council. The changes are aimed at separating cases of illegal tax refunds, primarily VAT, from “ordinary” fraud. This is done so that entrepreneurs can take advantage of the procedural guarantees provided for them, for example, in the form of a current ban on detention in a pre-trial detention center. The Federal Tax Service, the Ministry of Economy and law enforcement agencies support the initiative.

To the development of a draft law on the introduction of the article “Fraud in the tax sphere” (Article 159.7) into the Criminal Code, prepared by the business community (see “Kommersant” dated December 22, 2022), now the senators have also joined in – on Thursday at a round table meeting in the Federation Council, Senator Vladimir Kravchenko announced that the document, with the support of the upper house, is planned to be submitted to the State Duma.

The essence of the changes is the separation of fraud (Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) as a general criminal offense and illegal tax refunds (mainly VAT).

As Ekaterina Avdeeva, head of the expert center for criminal law policy at Delovaya Rossiya, explained, we are talking about cases of VAT refunds based on documents containing deliberately false information – errors, according to her, will not be subject to criminal prosecution. As follows from the text of the bill, such acts will be considered criminally punishable when causing “significant damage” – from 25 thousand rubles.

The size of illegally issued tax deductions is estimated by departments at 1 trillion rubles. in year. At the end of last year, as part of the fight against “paper” VAT, amendments supported by the government were introduced to the State Duma to introduce criminal liability for the sale of fake invoices (see “Kommersant” dated December 22, 2022).

Now the problem of qualifying illegal VAT refunds under Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation lies in the fact that entrepreneurs do not receive the guarantees provided for them (in particular, a ban on choosing a measure of restraint in the form of detention).

In addition to solving this problem, the draft law also provides for the possibility of exemption from liability when a crime is committed for the first time – in the case of double compensation for damage and payment of a fine (now, under the article on fraud, compensation for damage can only be a mitigating circumstance).

“This is a rather serious amount, which will become a punishment, but will stimulate revenues to the budget and save enterprises,” explained Ekaterina Avdeeva.

If the guilt is proven and the entrepreneur does not compensate for the damage, he will face the same punishment as for “ordinary” fraud – from 120 thousand rubles. a fine of up to two years in prison, in case of causing major damage (from 1.5 million rubles – by analogy with fraud in the field of lending instead of the current threshold of 250 thousand rubles) – up to six years in prison, especially large (from 6 million rubles instead of 1 million rubles) – up to ten.

It should be noted that the idea to formulate in the Criminal Code a separate composition for illegal tax refunds is not new – back in 2020 it was reported that it was being developed by the Federal Tax Service, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation and the Prosecutor General’s Office. Representatives of the Federal Tax Service and the Ministry of Economy, as well as law enforcement agencies support the initiative now. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation proposed only to provide for a clause that the new article would apply to persons engaged in real activities. As Anatoly Pankratiev, head of the 19th department of department “F” of the GUEBiPK of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, noted, in 2016-2022, 15-20% of all initiated cases of tax crimes were related to VAT refunds, while the share of “frankly drop companies” is minimal. According to him, such episodes are, as a rule, “some form of abuse”, which consists in the fact that an entrepreneur, having the right to a deduction, “paints on documents” and receives a large amount. According to Anatoly Pankratov, the bill is a balance of private and public interests: the responsibility for embezzlement of budgetary funds is not weakened and a uniform approach to tax crimes is provided. Now, according to him, if an entrepreneur evaded taxes by 100 million rubles. and issued a “false” deduction for 1 million rubles, then, having compensated for the damage on unpaid taxes, he will be released from liability, and for “the remaining million he will go to jail.”

Evgenia Kryuchkova