The creation of one-day firms is not only the absence or minimum taxes, but also illegal turnover of capital, salaries in envelopes, as well as the withdrawal of funds abroad or offshore. All this negatively affects the development of the "white" economy, which means that it is necessary to combat this with all available methods.
Why are one-day firms dangerous?
With the fact that such shell companies are dangerous for the state, everything is clear. However, this is not all. Such offices have a negative impact on their existence and on active activity on legally operating firms. After any operation, the tax authority may draw incorrect conclusions about the company's actions and decide that the tax benefit was received without good reason. In this case, the income tax will be increased, and VAT deductions will be completely removed.
The one-day firm, which will be responsible, has virtually no risk when it acts as a buyer, and then it will be very difficult to win a lawsuit. Due to the fact that it is very difficult to identify and eliminate such shell companies, and there are more and more of them, they have too much influence on the state economy and have become its integral part.
The purpose of one-day firms
It is clear that such offices are created with the aim of obtaining large and illegal profits. However, the whole point is that they offer their services to completely legal companies. What can one-day firms offer? The tax part, which is present in any transaction at a legal office, is extra expenses that the company does not need. It is tax evasion that the front companies, called fly-by-night companies, offer. The whole problem is that tax evasion is too effective a means to increase the efficiency of transactions, as well as to increase its competitiveness. Because of this, it turns out that the one who uses the services of such offices begins to dominate strongly in their business area over those companies that conduct completely legal business, and simply crowd them out.
One-day control methods
The elimination of one-day firms is a paramount task facing the federal tax service (FTS). In the theoretical part, there are many different methods that are designed to deal with such offices. However, as it turned out, in practice they do not work as well as intended.
Rumor has it that back in 2007 the tax office issued a document that describes the characteristics of a one-day company. There is a slight division into classes of these features in that document. Primary, which can be identified even at the stage of registration of a legal entity, are distinguished, secondary, which can be noticed when registering the office, and basic, which can be identified only after analysis of the company.
The thing is that the document contained as many as 109 points, according to which it is allegedly possible to identify a one-day company. However, in practice, as it turned out, almost all existing companies in the Russian Federation fell under one or another definition.
Sign Effectiveness
What made it happen that all 90% of companies fell under suspicion? The whole business cannot consist only of such front companies.In pursuit of the elimination of one-day firms, a document containing these very attributes included too many conflicting points. So, let’s say, the firm whose founder is old is, or, conversely, very young, will be suspected. One of the signs suggests that the founders of most shell companies are people who are registered in rural areas.
Verifications will be implemented according to the rating principle. That is, the offices that fall under the largest number of points will be checked first. However, even so, the list obtained by the employees of the federal tax service is so large that it actually confirms that the liquidation of one-day firms is impossible and they cannot deal with them. Hence the conclusions that the effectiveness of the signs is not too great.
Signs of a one-day company
However, despite the fact that the efficiency is low, this is almost the only way to deal with such illegal offices. Although it is worth noting that the document spells out several points that are really effective and with their help you can calculate illegal immigrants in business.
- The first of these signs is the registration of the address of the front office. If 10 or more other companies are registered at the same address, then most likely they are fake.
- The office is being registered or is already registered with the mass applicant.
- The most suspicious is the failure to pay taxes by the company or the payment of too small amounts in relation to the profit that it has.
- The life of an illegal office is about a year or two.
- Most often, the company does not have employees.
- Under the liquidation of one-day firms will fall those who initially had a minimum starting capital.
Other methods of struggle
Besides the existence of this list containing 109 items, there are other methods. So, those firms that will not respond to letters arriving from the federal tax service at the address indicated in the unified state register of legal entities may fall under the closure of the company. To be more precise, the Federal Tax Service will suspend all work on the accounts of such enterprises.
However, this method also has a significant flaw. The problem is that in addition to illegal immigrants, there are legal companies that indicate not their place of work as their legal address, but the place of rental of the premises, which occupies only one or two square meters in a building. This method is quite acceptable and is an international practice.
Criminal liability
In addition to those methods that have already been listed, there is one more. It is regulated by the law of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and is valid from the moment of its occurrence on December 7, 2011. The essence of the law is simple and understandable. The use of one-day firms by individuals will threaten them with heavy fines or imprisonment for a certain period. In addition, those persons who issued documents authorizing the opening of such an illegal office also fall under the article. Immediately after signing such a decree, there was much debate about its effectiveness, but one thing is clear. Tough measures of struggle are evaluated positively, since the tougher the measure of punishment for breaking the law, the fewer people who want to break it. Thus, by tightening responsibility, it will not be easier to remove existing firms, but it is quite possible to prevent the emergence of new ones.
Liquidation of the company. Step-by-step instruction
The first thing that needs to be done in order to independently liquidate the one-day company and not break the law is to warn the state body that the office is closing. Currently, the place to report such decisions is the Federal Tax Service. It is important to know that the notification of the Federal Tax Service should occur within three days from the moment after which it was decided to close the enterprise.In addition, you must do this by filling out the appropriate form. Regarding how to fill out such a document correctly and without errors, there are special guidelines that have been approved by the same Federal Tax Service. If you do not invest in the established three days, then leading people can be fined up to 5000 rubles.
Second step
If the desire to close the company was final, then in addition to filling out the forms, you also need to hire a liquidation commission or, as it is also called, a liquidator. It is worth paying attention to the fact that this action should also be accompanied by the completion of a certain form, which is also sent to the Federal Tax Service. Immediately after the founder selects a liquidator and prepares all the necessary documents, the commission assumes all rights to manage the office and its liquidation, and also undertakes to act in the lawsuit on behalf of the company.
The first thing that liquidators usually do when they get down to work is to notify the liquidation of an office in a journal that is designed to print data on legal entities. In addition to indicating the liquidation of the company, the commission must also indicate the time during which the creditors of the company may present any rights or claims to the liquidators. It is important to know that the period provided for the presentation of rights may not be less than two months from the moment the liquidation was announced.
Recent liquidation actions
After implementing all of the above measures, the liquidation of the company begins. It is accompanied by an inventory of things, as well as obligations and notifications to all creditors of this office that it is closing. Further, after the expiry of the period provided to creditors for claims, the commission draws up the so-called liquidation balance sheet. This is followed by a clause which states that liquidators must pay off debts to all creditors of the office. However, most often the company’s own funds for this are not enough. Because of this, there are rules by which there is priority in paying debts.
The first on the list are those who suffered in physical terms due to the actions of the office. After calculating all debts to all creditors, another account is drawn up, which is approved by the founders and is the last for the company. If after payment of debts something remains, then this property is distributed among all the founders of the company. In order to fully complete the liquidation, the Federal Tax Service must get such papers as confirmation of payment of state duty, the last liquidation balance sheet and a statement in the form of No. R 16001.
Individual entrepreneur
IP elimination is carried out in two ways. There is a voluntary process that is carried out by decision of the entrepreneur himself, as well as a forced one, which is performed only by court order. Liquidation of IP is carried out by the federal tax service. The liquidation will be the branch in which the entrepreneur is registered. It is worth noting that in case of voluntary liquidation, the private trader has the right not to indicate the reason, you just need to correctly fill out the application.