In 2023, the tax system has undergone a radical change with the introduction of the Unified Tax Account (UTA). Now taxpayers may replenish their UNT in advance, at any convenient time, with the help of a Unified Tax Payment (UTP). When the deadline (now also unified) for paying various taxes approaches, the taxpayer submits notifications of the amounts due, and the Federal Tax Service then distributes the funds from the UTA to proper budgets.
Before 2023 taxpayers had to fill in multiple details when producing the bank payment orders for tax payments, but the payments went directly into their designated budgets. Now the taxpayer has a single tax "purse" to replenish from which the Federal Tax Service distributes money to budgets of various levels. It was with the distribution part that serious problems were identified.
Personal income tax is one of the most important sources of financing for regional and municipal budgets. With the introduction of the UTA, the regions faced a drop in budget revenues, and were left with no way to obtain information about the causes of arrears, so as to “influence” the debtors through the long-established local Commissions for strengthening financial and tax discipline.
Complaints flooded from the regions, and what began as an economic problem quickly reached the federal political level. President Putin instructed the Federal Tax Service to investigate the problems related to UTA by April 15 and report on ways of solving them.
The problems in the regions were mainly caused by the practice of offsetting arrears in the payment of such taxes as VAT and property tax with the collected personal income tax. As a result, the personal income tax ended in the federal budget instead of its proper regional budget. In addition, when returning an overpayment of a “federal” tax, the amount of the refund was divided between taxes on the UTA, the personal income tax among them - thus the regional tax collections, again, flowed into the federal budget.
Various ways of solving problems with the UTA were discussed: to freeze the entire UTA institution until 2025 while all the mechanisms are fine-tuned; to separate personal income tax from the UTP, or at least ensure “personal income tax immunity” by prohibiting the Tax Service to offset the arrears on other taxes at the expense of personal income tax.
It was the latter approach that the legislators chose: the relevant law was adopted by the State Duma at a plenary session on May 17, and the necessary amendments to the Tax Code will also be adopted: “Personal income tax from the UTP funds will be credited as a matter of priority to regional and local budgets.” “Citizens' income tax should not compensate for the arrears in tax revenues from businesses and cut the income of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation,” said Valentina Matviyenko, vice speaker of the Federation Council.