“Created conditions for VAT refunds”: FSB and FTS liquidate grounds for avoiding taxes on agricultural products

Employees of the Federal Tax Service (FTS) and the Federal Security Service (FSB) conducted inspections in 13 regions of Russia to eliminate “sites” that unscrupulous suppliers of agricultural products could use to evade taxes.

"An assessment will be made of the degree of involvement of the largest mills, livestock, feed mills and other refineries in the illegal scheme of minimizing tax liabilities and thereby gaining an unjustified competitive advantage over other market participants who conduct transparent procurement activities," the FTS representative quotes the FTS.

It is noted that five large “sites” have already been identified, on which conditions were created for unjustified VAT refunds for grains that were not exported, but were sent for processing.

Recall that when exporting goods, there is a zero VAT rate, which means that companies can get a refund of the amount of tax paid on these products.

The interlocutor of the agency said that since 2017, the FTS has been working to curb the schemes of unjustified tax optimization in the sphere of agricultural production, including schemes for unjustified VAT refunds on grain exports. The result of the work on this project was the signing of the Charter in the sphere of agricultural products turnover, as well as the transition to direct deliveries and the abandonment of contracts with entities that have signs of “problem” and “transit” taxpayers. In total, the Charter was signed by more than 3.5 thousand organizations from 76 regions of Russia.

"According to the results of the declaration campaigns of the grain industry participants for the second half of 2017 and the first half of 2018, the total budget benefit amounted to 57.4 billion rubles," the Federal Tax Service stressed.

At the same time, the department found out that regional and interregional "platforms" continue to operate on the market for the internal processing of agricultural raw materials, whose activities lead to shortfalls in taxes to the budget.

A number of enterprises in the Leningrad and Chelyabinsk regions have confirmed to information agencies about the conduct of inspections at agricultural holdings. Also, the general director of the Rusagro group of companies, Maxim Basov, said that employees of the departments had come to one of the company's enterprises.

“We see nothing strange in this,” said Basov, adding that during the inspections at the enterprises all the necessary documents are provided.

In turn, the press service of Cherkizovo reported that in some regional offices of the company there are representatives of law enforcement agencies as part of a routine audit of the company's counterparties. They also noted that they are assisting regulatory agencies in identifying unfair market participants.

“They are checking not the Cherkizovo group, but regular suppliers of goods, works, services with which we interact,” a company representative told TASS.

It is worth adding that the other day, the Deputy Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, Oksana Lut, reported that, according to preliminary estimates, the export of Russian agricultural products in 2018 could reach $ 26 billion.

“The industry is developing quite well, $ 25.8–25.9 (billion - RT ). Now there are calculations. Up to $ 26 (billion - RT ), I think we will reach 2018, ”she said.

The deputy minister added that Russia managed to achieve self-sufficiency in virtually all types of food. The exception is greenhouse vegetables, but the lag in these positions can be eliminated within a few years, Lut believes.

In addition, in November 2018, Nikolai Vlasov, deputy head of the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance, reported that, according to the Rosselkhoznadzor, sales of counterfeit products are about 1 trillion rubles a year.

"Representatives of the federal retail chains say that from 2 to 10% of their suppliers leave after entering mandatory veterinary certification, as they cannot confirm the origin of their products," Rossiyskaya Gazeta quotes Vlasov.

We are talking about the transition of producers of meat, milk, eggs, livestock and poultry from paper to electronic certificates, which occurred in the summer of 2018.