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- Shadow vector: the authorities are preparing serious changes for the transfer of money
Shadow vector: the authorities are preparing serious changes for the transfer of money
Russia is planning to introduce new rules when transferring money. As Izvestia found out, the authorities will strengthen control over small businesses and the self-employed. When making transactions, they will need to specify the recipient's full name, and in the purpose of the payment — detailed information about the goods and services. The Federal Tax Service, together with the Central Bank, will also have permanent access to information about Russian transfers in order to "whitewash" the economy. In addition, in the autumn, the Ministry of Finance will consider the possibility of extending VAT to SBP transactions. What such measures will lead to is in the Izvestia article.
How will the transfer control change from April 1
Starting from April 1, the rules for money transfers will change. The amendments are of a technical nature, they primarily affect operations related to businesses, individual entrepreneurs and the self-employed.
The Ministry of Finance explained that the new rules do not apply to transactions between individuals, Vasily Kutyin, Ingo Bank's Director of Analytics, drew attention. The requirements for filling out banking details only for transfers to the budget system of the Russian Federation and payments to treasury accounts will change.
"This initiative is not about taxing a birthday transfer to mom, a shared lunch bill, and debt refunds, but it is impossible and economically pointless to administer household transfers en masse," said Alexey Petrov, managing director of the Vepay payment service.
But the business will feel the innovations. Legal entities and sole proprietors will now be required to indicate the recipient's full name or legal status when making transfers. In the "Purpose of payment" field, you must specify the goods, works or services, numbers and dates of the contracts. Self-employed and private practitioners should also indicate their full name, type of activity, and INN.
Ordinary citizens will also have to provide full data when paying taxes or state duties, but in practice this has long been automated by banking services, explained Denis Astafyev, founder of the SharesPro fintech platform. At the same time, the cost of an error for a business increases: an incorrectly filled out document may be returned, or it may hang until it is clarified through the tax service.
What do these changes mean for business?
The new requirements are aimed primarily at those who work outside the legal framework, such as entrepreneurs and the self—employed, who accept payments directly to a card or by phone number without reporting transactions, said Andrey Shubin, Executive Director of Opora Russia. In fact, we are talking about a systematic fight against the shadow economy.
A significant part of the nano- and microbusiness in Russia — from beauty salons to tutors and masters from social networks — has been working for years on the "skin on the card" model and ignores even sparing tax regimes like self-employment with a tax rate of only 6%, said Alexey Petrov from Vepay. Legal businesses lose out because of this, because their expenses will obviously be higher than those of entrepreneurs from the gray zone.
— If you systematically receive money from different people and don't pay a penny in taxes, it's only a matter of time before the system sees it. The tightening of controls is a direct consequence of the behavior of the microbusiness itself, which for years has ignored even minimal forms of legalization," emphasized Alexey Petrov.
We are talking, among other things, about the segment of rental housing, where a significant part of payments is not declared, said economist Andrei Barkhota.
The main scale of the problem is concentrated in large retail hubs, product bases and markets, said Alexander Shkarupa, brand director and founder of the Dynamics event agency. It is there that cash turnover reaches billions of rubles and is practically not reflected in the banking system.
In 2018, the Central Bank estimated the shadow cash turnover of only three Moscow shopping complexes — Sadovod, Moskva in Lublin and Food City — at 600 billion rubles per month, Alexander Shkarupa said. At the same time, negligible amounts were included in the registers of deposits to bank accounts. The situation has hardly changed since then, and this is a problem that Russian President Vladimir Putin drew attention to back in 2024.
An additional factor is shadow employment, including among migrants, the expert added. Budget losses from the informal economy are estimated at 3 trillion rubles annually, concluded Alexander Shkarupa.
How will the Russians be affected by the general tightening of transfer controls
On March 23, the government approved a bill designed to expand the exchange of information between the Federal Tax Service and the Central Bank. Previously, access to individuals' banking operations was limited by formal procedures, but now it is planned to create a permanent automated data exchange channel.
In fact, we are talking about the formation of a unified system for analyzing financial flows, Andrei Barkhota added. The Bank of Russia will be able to aggregate transactions of citizens from different banks and compare them with tax data. This will allow you to identify anomalies and suspicious schemes faster and more accurately.
There will be excesses, false alarms are possible, stressed Alexander Shkarupa. Non-standard transfers and atypical patterns of operations may raise questions not only from banks, but also from the tax service. But any such issues are usually resolved in a clarification format — the main consequences here will be for businesses that operate from the shadows.
The prospect of introducing VAT on transactions through the Rapid Payment System (SBP) is being discussed separately. There are no such decisions yet, but the Ministry of Finance plans to assess the need for this measure in the fall.
The main reason for the discussion is the growth of gray settlements, said Vladimir Chernov, analyst at Freedom Finance Global. In recent years, card transfers and SBPs have become a key payment tool in small businesses, with a significant portion of transactions tax-free. We can talk about hundreds of billions of rubles annually.
If VAT is extended to SBP, businesses will face an increase in fees, and consumers will face higher prices, Alexander Shkarupa is sure.
Excessive regulation can also lead to a decrease in business activity and only increase the withdrawal of part of the business into the shadows, warned Andrey Shubin from Opora Russia. The expert believes that the balance between control and maintaining incentives for legal work should be a key issue for regulators.
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