Mobile application for self-employed Russians, version for Android The

financial website Banki.ru reports that self-employed Russians are faced with the first account locks. This is due to the fact that credit organizations "do not always understand how to qualify the activities of citizens." On the one hand, customers open accounts as individuals. On the other hand, they receive payments for commercial activities on their personal cards. At the same time, in an account servicing agreement it is usually directly forbidden to use an individual's account for entrepreneurial activity.

In this case, if you found the order through some freelance exchange and ask the customer to transfer the payment to your bank card, this is a direct violation of the service agreement. Previously, banks turned a blind eye to this, but now they have begun to block accounts of individuals, tax experts say.

“The man opened the account, and as a result, the account was blocked for him, too. At the same time, they cannot open an account for him as an individual entrepreneur, because for this it is necessary to provide a certificate of registration as an individual entrepreneur. But the self-employed in the Unified State Register of Enterprises is not registered, there is a notification procedure, ”said Sergei Zelenov, head of the tax committee of the Moscow branch of the“ Support of Russia ”.

In such a situation, it is not clear what freelancers are doing. After all, if a person has officially registered as self-employed and wants to accept payment for his services, he will not be able to open a bank account as an individual entrepreneur. And if he opens an account as an individual, then he is not allowed to accept payments on cards, because this contradicts the terms of the service agreement. There is a certain gap in the legislation.

Banki.ru website conducted a survey of banking organizations and found out that they have different attitudes to the problem. There is really no single approach, so many banks still have the risk of blocking an account.

Yulia Galueva, Deputy General Director for Legal Issues of the Legal Service of Amuleks, explained in a commentary to the publication that the wording of the current legislation does not directly indicate that self-employed operations are precisely entrepreneurial activities. Although this is a logical conclusion and something taken for granted, there is no such phrase in regulatory acts, therefore freelancers are still in a kind of “gray zone”. Yes, they can officially register as self-employed and pay tax, but from the point of view of banks, they are forbidden to engage in entrepreneurial activity. It follows from the Civil Code that only individual entrepreneurs are engaged in entrepreneurial activity. What then do freelancers (self-employed) do? Unclear.

Banks easily calculate “suspicious” accounts, because the nature of operations on the accounts of freelancers is different from ordinary “physicists”. Self-employed can receive multiple transfers from different individuals and companies.

Perhaps the best option for the bank would be to open special tariff plans for officially registered freelancers, with tariffs slightly higher than the accounts of individuals, but lower than those of individual entrepreneurs. But until they appear, blocking customer accounts does not seem to be the best solution, because people have no options on how to solve the problem.

Professional income tax

The self-employed income tax came into force on January 1, 2019. From this moment on, a citizen operating in test regions (Moscow, Moscow Region, Kaluga Region and the Republic of Tatarstan) can register as a self-employed person and instead of the usual personal income tax and social contributions pay 4% of the income received when working with individuals and 6% when working with legal entities. Moreover, it is not necessary to be registered in these regions - it is enough to prove the actual conduct of activities in the test region.

You can register:

• in the application "My Tax" ,
  
• through a personal account on the tax website,
  
• through the bank.

After confirming the registration and upon receipt of income, it will be necessary to mark this income and issue checks in the same application. The maximum income of the self-employed is limited to 2.4 million rubles. per year (on average, 200 thousand rubles per month).

According to experts, this is the lowest interest rate on income in Russia, and from fixed rates in the world as a whole. That is, working as a self-employed freelancer is much more profitable than as an individual entrepreneur. There are no hidden taxes or fixed fees. If there is no income, then no taxes are required. For comparison, in Belarus, according to a simplified taxation system, an individual entrepreneur pays 5% income tax plus a fixed amount to the social security fund ($ 55 per month), regardless of the amount of income this month. That is, even with an income of $ 10 per month, a person must pay 5% and $ 55.

It would seem that a very convenient scheme has been implemented in Russia. But reality is far from theory. In practice, the “My Tax” application does not work perfectly (in reviews on Google Play they complain about constant freezes and other errors), and now banks are also blocking accounts self-employed.

To avoid blocking, experts recommend:

• open a separate account for business income;
  
• warn the bank about its self-employed status.