In St. Petersburg they want to cancel the tax benefit for small businesses. Entrepreneurs are preparing to cut wages and raise prices or close down.
Starting January 1, the rate of the simple taxation method of "income minus expenses" for most companies and private entrepreneurs in St. Petersburg may increase from the preferred 7% to 15%, Fontanka writes, citing sources. They plan to keep the exception for qualified IT companies, small technology enterprises, manufacturing industries and businesses engaged in research and development.
The head of the consulting company Business Finance Group in St. Petersburg, Yevgenia Zubova, warns: it is almost impossible to rebuild a business model within a month, and up to 40% of factories may close.
Business FM has already talked about entrepreneurs in St. Petersburg who, because of pennies owed to the tax authorities, had their benefits canceled and additionally charged 1.5 and 2 million rubles. Moreover, the debts themselves amounted to only 10 rubles and 1 ruble. After our publications, Deputy Governor Alexei Korvalnikov said that the authorities are preparing corrections: a debt of up to 3,000 rubles should no longer lead to the loss of benefits. But the amendments have not yet been adopted, and one of the heroes of our story is still charged 2 million rubles.
Now another entrepreneur, Elder Danilov, turned to the system. The tax office discovered that he had a negative balance of a single tax account of 7,135 rubles and assessed an additional amount of more than 2 million. The businessman himself claims that there was no debt, and he has supporting documents. If the benefit is canceled permanently, Danilov intends to raise prices and reduce the wages of sellers from the current 70,000 to about 50,000 rubles. For example, an ordinary souvenir magnet will cost 250-300 instead of 200 rubles.
Another interlocutor of Business FM, the entrepreneur Pyotr Gurdaev, is considering switching to the simple tax system for "income" at the rate of 6% of income.