The Bill provides for the extension to individuals of the procedure for the extrajudicial collection of tax debts which is currently applied to legal entities and individual entrepreneurs. The new procedure will be applied only in the absence of objections from the taxpayer - otherwise the tax authority will have to go to court. Ekaterina Kopylova, tax consultant at Tax Compliance, commented on the main provisions of the document in the Kommersant review. 

The expert notes that individuals are not yet ready to respond promptly to notifications from the tax authorities on debts through the portal ‘Gosuservices’ or by mail. However, the development and ‘testing’ of this practice on individual entrepreneurs allows to apply this experience to individuals as well. 

With proper preparation and quality co-operation with representatives of the tax service, significant violations can be resolved without court proceedings, although it may be necessary to attract the attention of a higher tax authority by filing a complaint. 

Benefits and risks for citizens

On the one hand, the draft law seeks to relieve the work of justices of the peace, which is a positive step towards speeding up court proceedings. However, it is necessary to ensure the balance of public and private interests. If the collection procedure is oversimplified, there is a risk of violating the right of citizens to judicial defence provided for by Article 46 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. 

Nevertheless, this change looks logical, given the development of the practice of interaction of taxpayers with the tax service and its positioning as a service. 

Amounts and conditions for recovery 

The Bill does not set thresholds for extrajudicial collection: if the taxpayer does not dispute the debt, the relevant amount can be written off from its accounts very quickly. 

To do this, the tax authority needs only within 6 months from the date of the debt to take a decision and send it to the taxpayer, then there is another week to send orders to banks. 

At the same time, it is indicated that the withholding of funds must comply with the requirements to maintain the minimum subsistence level. 

Also foreclosure may not be applied to certain types of income, such as compensation for injury to health, in connection with the death of the breadwinner and other social payments, which is determined by the rules of enforcement proceedings and may require the need to write a corresponding application to the bank by the individual.