Each businessman is excitedly waiting for the treasured numbers - the deadlines for reporting. Now this event, rather, can be compared with a lottery - either it’s lucky and the amount of the obligations paid will satisfy the state, or the figures from the fiscal services will cause suspicions, and soon they will come with a check. How not to get into the black list of malicious concealers of budgetary funds and at the same time remain profitable, let's talk below.
What is the tax burden?
The tax burden, or as we will call it in this article - press, oppression and burden, represents a certain amount of obligations of the entrepreneur to the state, which is measured in monetary terms and includes all assessed contributions to the budget for a certain period of time.
There are several characteristics of this indicator:
- despite his gratuitousness, it is mandatory;
- withdrawn in an nonequivalent ratio;
- carried out with certain regularity.
Based on the above characteristics, do not confuse the concept and include in the budget burden such mandatory payments as fines, penalties, contributions to social insurance funds, since they are not periodic in nature, but are paid only as obligations arise that may not arise at all .
Therefore, the types of tax burden can only be classified according to the following components:
- value added tax;
- liabilities for profit;
- property tax and other regular payments.
Budget burden analysis
Only a lazy modern entrepreneur will not allocate enough time and resources to such a procedure as tax planning. In today's market, overshadowed by constantly changing legislation, minimizing risks is extremely necessary and profitable.
Therefore, modern business entities are doing everything possible to reduce the tax burden, all this entails optimizing the functioning of their own financial resources without attracting borrowed capital. In other words, they are looking for loopholes in the current legislation.
In theory, everything is simple - there is a critical indicator of tax burden, and every entrepreneur strives for it. For this, various techniques are used that are completely permissible by law, while they minimize the obligations to the state budget. Therefore, tax planning is a process of selecting the necessary tools for this.
What presses do they usually reduce? As a rule, only a few payments are most worried about the business entity, therefore, the corresponding tax burden is reduced - income tax and value added, and we’ll talk about them in more detail.
The essence of the VAT tax burden
It's no secret that value added tax is the main headache of all accountants. No matter how much they talk about him, no matter how much they criticize the current legislation for the incompleteness of the methodology for calculating VAT, nevertheless it remains one of the main ways to replenish the state treasury, and no one is going to refuse to pay it.
As for the tax burden regarding VAT, it represents the ratio between the amount of paid value added tax for the reporting period and the total mass of obligations replenished by the budget.
With efficient production, the tax planning procedure described above tends to reduce the coefficient obtained in relation to previous years.
Profit tax burden
The burden of income tax also represents a certain ratio between the amount of liabilities paid and the mass of adjusted gross income for a given reporting period. At the same time, if a business entity does not suspiciously meet the target indicator, then representatives of fiscal authorities simply have the full right not to accept reports. Therefore, with a decrease in oppression, it is not entirely advantageous to overdo it, but on the contrary, it can also cause excess headache and trouble.
What gives a lower tax burden on profits? First, as already mentioned, in this case, more working capital remains in the amount of equity. But secondly, why pay more if this amount can be legally reduced?
And one more small secret - the closer the obligations are paid to the budget by the deadline, the longer the money remains at the disposal of the enterprise and, possibly, it is quite legal to increase the turnover of assets with their help.
Industry load
In addition to the fact that the amount of liabilities paid is involved in calculating the relativity coefficient inside the assets of a business entity, fiscal authorities keep their statistics, which are based on such an indicator as the tax burden by type of activity.
It just so happened that there are not very many monopolists in the global ratio, therefore, representatives of state bodies compare the burden of a particular enterprise with the average industry. Nevertheless, it is strongly recommended to carry out this procedure on your own until the moment of reporting, otherwise there is a risk of waiting for representatives of the on-site inspection to visit.
Burden Calculation Methodology
In fact, methods for calculating the coveted coefficient are more than enough to choose from the list the most suitable and affordable.
Probably the most popular on the modern market is the method provided by the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation. It represents the usual division of indicators (of which we spoke above), the result of which is multiplied by 100%.
However, in some countries the tax burden is calculated in other ways. So, for example, by the method of arrears. The amount of all created goods in the reporting period (minus VAT and depreciation) is calculated and the necessary coefficient is calculated from the received amount. And this means that the lost profit of the state treasury is distributed to payments in favor of extra-budgetary funds.
There is also a methodology for calculating the total fiscal burden, in which all liabilities paid to the budget are summarized and correlated with the tax base.
We can say that in the world there are many ways to calculate this coefficient. Each tax planning school is trying to derive its own method of calculation to this day, but, unfortunately, we do not have the opportunity to describe each of them, so we turn to the role of the burden for modern business entities.
Practical reduction of the tax burden of the enterprise
So, we have already found out that many business entities reduce the tax burden as much as possible. This allows you to optimize the production process and increase the liquidity of current assets. But we can say that the low tax burden is an individual work of economists of each enterprise individually, since it is difficult to find in the public domain any official methodological aids indicating how the average industry burden is calculated by fiscal authorities.
Nevertheless, the state takes care of its taxpayers, so several years ago, the rate of oppression was officially reduced.And what do you think this regulatory act entailed? Surprisingly, according to statistics, the tax evasion rate has decreased significantly, and liabilities paid to the budget, on the contrary, have increased. In addition, a simplified system of accounting for liabilities to the budget for small entrepreneurs allowed the latter to almost double their own revenue.
The policy of the Russian Federation regarding tax oppression
It is not entirely correct to assert that the tax burden as a subject of regulation of modern business is supported by any regulatory legal acts. Rather, these documents can be called methodological manuals, since in the current unstable market relations it is difficult to predict what the state of this or that industry will be in the next year.
Of course, the Federal Fiscal Service is developing typical forecasts for the next three years, which can add at least some confidence in the future and plan tax revenues as much as possible, but these figures are not very accurate.
Yes, of course, a certain fiscal sustainability exists, but it is not enough.
findings
Thus, we can conclude that it is difficult to talk about the perfection of the modern domestic fiscal system. As we see, our state is actively applying the carrot and stick technique, which sometimes works successfully, and sometimes not.
A modern entrepreneur is vulnerable to government reform, especially when such an important indicator as the tax burden is at stake. Let's hope that the government incentive does not end there, and the level of the shadow economy will indeed become much lower.
