Tax authorities conduct income checks of Russian infobusinessmen with a significant number of subscribers in social networks. A source familiar with the situation told Vedomosti about this, the information was confirmed by an interlocutor close to the Federal Tax Service. The fact that the “stars of Instagram” (the social network belongs to Meta, which is recognized as an extremist organization in Russia and banned) came to the attention of the service is also known to another source of Vedomosti, close to the government, the information is confirmed by both community representatives and market participants.
The tax authorities have been actively involved in the industry since the beginning of 2022, the first interlocutor specified. Then the Federal Tax Service began to notify bloggers of the need to declare income, and also prepared a methodology for detecting cases of tax evasion, tools for bringing to justice, he specified. The opening of cases against popular information businessmen can be called the public results of this work, the source added.
Since March, the security forces have opened cases against bloggers Valeria Chekalina, Alexandra Mitroshina and Elena Blinovskaya. The first, according to the Investigative Committee (IC), illegally split up the business and evaded taxes in the amount of more than 300 million rubles. The second owed the state 120 million rubles, estimated in the UK. Blinovskaya evaded paying more than 900 million rubles. All three bloggers received income from individual entrepreneurs using a simplified taxation system (the tax rate under this scheme is 6%), follows from the messages of the UK. Infobusinessmen did not switch to the general regime, which involves the payment of VAT and personal income tax, after their income exceeded the allowable limit of 150 million rubles. per year, and split up the business, including issuing invoices for affiliates. Chekalina and Mitroshina promised to pay off their debt to the state, and Blinovskaya, according to her defense, made a voluntary significant payment to the budget.
The market for influencer marketing and native advertising, according to the Association for the Development of Interactive Advertising, in 2022 amounted to 12 billion rubles. (we are talking about open, white data).
On April 27, the Telegram channel Baza reported that a special department had been created at the Federal Tax Service to check Russians who earn money through social networks. According to the channel, the task of the tax authorities is to check bloggers who earn more than 50 million rubles. in year. Vedomosti sources did not confirm the information about the creation of a special “blogging” department. On April 29, the Mash agency reported that the Ministry of Internal Affairs had compiled a blacklist of millionaire bloggers who are planned to be tested for tax evasion. The representative of the Federal Tax Service did not comment on this information.
Bringing this industry out of the shadows is just one of the tasks of the Federal Tax Service to increase collection, said another source close to the government. According to him, last year, during the preparation of the budget for 2023, ambitious goals for this indicator were set for the service. It was necessary to reduce the expected budget deficit, so a rather optimistic collection forecast was approved, the source said. He declined to name a specific target.
Vedomosti sent a request to the tax service, the government and the Ministry of Finance.
“Marathons of Vasily Pupkin”
Government structures have begun to take an active interest in bloggers, says Mark Khludnev, founder of the Digital Church advertising agency. In particular, the Federal Tax Service has long understood that many large bloggers often hide their income, and this is tens of billions of rubles, he notes. According to him, indeed, back in 2022, active checks by the Federal Tax Service began. “Representatives of the tax authorities come to us because many bloggers work as individual entrepreneurs and self-employed, which attracts the attention of the tax authorities to them. It all boils down to the fact that we send documents to the Federal Tax Service and that’s all,” Khludnev specified.
Infobusinessmen publicly talk about their high incomes: it is logical that this attracts the attention of both the public and the tax service, added a representative of the Association of Bloggers and Agencies (ABA). Attention to bloggers has been growing since 2018 – this is not a trend of recent months, he recalled. With the chaotic formation of the market, the approach to document management was also chaotically formed, the interlocutor added. There is indeed increased attention from the tax authorities, he confirmed. They check both bloggers and their counterparties as part of tax audits, a representative of the ABA said. As a general rule, tax claims are sent not only to the defaulter, but also to his counterparties with questions about the activities of bloggers and transactions with them, he explained.
Making big fortunes on people’s trust, some, as we see, use fraudulent schemes to avoid paying taxes. And we are talking about huge amounts: from millions to billions. As time has shown, often these are those who are trying to teach life, having mastered social networks. It is right that such issues are under the special control of the Federal Tax Service – today it is equipped with everything necessary to detect such crimes.
A few years ago, the Federal Tax Service issued letters warning about the ban on the use of splitting schemes to minimize tax liabilities, B1 partner Maria Frolova reminded. The actions of the service are not directed against the community as a whole, but are aimed at isolated cases of violations, she is sure. Over the past few years, more on-site tax audits of individual entrepreneurs have been carried out, added Alexander Erasov, partner in the tax practice at MEF Legal.
In itself, sending notifications is not something exceptional: the tax authorities periodically practice sending out such reminders when they receive data on large one-time incomes, for example, when selling real estate or expensive cars, Andrey Shpak, partner of Tomashevskaya & Partners, said. The tax authorities periodically create specialized groups to work out complex and promising problems from the point of view of improving tax collections, as well as for a more effective exchange of experience and best practices, he added. The application of this practice to bloggers as individual entrepreneurs is also not something completely unique – the tax authorities have extensive experience in countering the artificial fragmentation of business using individual entrepreneurs, although traditionally they paid more attention to these schemes in conjunction with classic “commodity” businesses, the lawyer emphasized.
In principle, if you can prove that each element of the business structure – in the case of bloggers, each individual entrepreneur – was an absolutely independent unit, then the charges can be dropped, there are such precedents, Shpak recalled. Within the framework of corporate business, at least we are talking about the use of separate legal entities with different management, employees, etc., around which it is possible to build some kind of evidence system. “But it’s more difficult for bloggers to prove the independence of the accounts, since their activities are public and it’s somewhat problematic to confirm that Vasily Pupkin was actually the performer in the framework of the “marathon” of the conditional Blinovskaya,” Shpak ironically.