How to close an individual entrepreneur with debts on taxes and contributions

Grounds for closing an individual entrepreneur

The grounds for closing an individual entrepreneur can be divided into two categories:

1. By the decision of the entrepreneur himself. If for some reason an individual entrepreneur no longer wants to run his own business, he can close it. To do this, you will have to pay off all debts, fire employees and complete the necessary documents.
2. By decision of the government authority:

• Tax Service - tax authorities do not yet have such powers, however, as of September 1, 2020, changes to the legislation come into force. The Federal Law “On Amendments...” dated November 12, 2019 No. 377-FZ will supplement the Law “On State Registration...” dated August 8, 2001 No. 129-FZ with Article 22.4, which gives the Federal Tax Service the right to exclude an entrepreneur from the Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs if he does not submit reporting period for 15 months or more and at the same time has an outstanding tax debt.
• Court - an appropriate decision is made, for example, if an individual entrepreneur cannot pay off his debts on his own, and therefore the court declares him bankrupt.

How to be exempt from paying taxes and contributions

The suspension of the activities of an individual entrepreneur is unlikely to happen in one day, so you can prepare for this. If you worked for the simplified tax system, OSNO, or unified agricultural tax, then during the period of suspension of activities, when there is no income, you will not have to pay taxes.

But when choosing a PSN, you need to act differently, and here everything depends on the duration of the patent. If it was issued for a month or two, which is already expiring, you can do nothing, especially if the cost of the patent is low. But for patents originally issued for 10-12 months, of which the individual entrepreneur has worked only part of it, it is necessary to submit an application 26.5-4 within 10 days. Then the cost of the patent will be recalculated, and if it has already been paid in advance, then a tax offset or refund can be made.

Regarding insurance premiums for oneself, Article 430 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation provides for temporary exemption if the entrepreneur finds himself in one of the situations:

• caring for a child under one and a half years old, a disabled child, a disabled person of the first group, a person over 80 years old;
• military service upon conscription;
• living with a spouse who is a diplomatic worker or a contract military serviceman, if the individual entrepreneur cannot do business under existing conditions.

In addition, you can avoid paying contributions for yourself without closing your individual entrepreneur if you switch to paying tax on professional income.

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How to prepare for the closure of a sole proprietorship

To close an individual entrepreneur, you need to put things and documents in order - the tax office will exclude the enterprise from the Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs only if it has no outstanding debts. Before contacting the Federal Tax Service you need:

1. Make a decision to terminate activities as an individual entrepreneur. It is not necessary to document it - the law does not contain any instructions in this regard.
2. Within a month from the date of the decision to abolish the individual entrepreneur, transfer information about the employees of the enterprise to the territorial office of the Pension Fund (you will have to fill out forms SZV-M, SZV-STAZH and SZV-TD).
3. Notify the employment service about the upcoming dismissal of employees due to liquidation (at least two weeks before dismissal - clause 2 of article 25 of the law “On Employment...” of April 19, 1991 No. 1032-1) and warn the employees themselves about this ( no less than two months before dismissal - Part 2 of Article 180 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation).
4. Calculate the amount of insurance premiums for employees and pay off underpayments (if any). The calculation and form 6-NDFL are submitted to the tax office.
5. Send an application for deregistration to the territorial office of the Social Insurance Fund, as well as copies of orders for the dismissal of employees (subparagraph 3, paragraph 3, article 6 of the federal law “On Mandatory...” dated July 24, 1998 No. 125-FZ). In addition, you will need to fill out form 4-FSS.
6. Close your bank account.
7. To deregister an online cash register (if you registered it) - to do this, you need to submit a corresponding application to the tax office.
8. Pay contributions to the Pension Fund and Social Insurance Fund for yourself, submit tax returns and other reports, pay taxes.
9. Prepare a package of documents necessary to close an individual entrepreneur and submit them to the Federal Tax Service.

All of the above actions need to be performed only if you have employees. If there are no employees, you skip steps aimed at interacting with funds.

ConsultantPlus has many ready-made solutions, including the article “Beware, the individual entrepreneur is closing.” If you don't have access to the system yet, sign up for a free trial online. You can also get the current K+ price list.

Responsibility of individual entrepreneurs after closure

Legal acts do not stipulate the periods during which the responsible person must inform counterparties about liquidation.

Having completed the work of an individual entrepreneur, an individual pays taxes, fines, insurance premiums and other debts received during the period of activity.

The former entrepreneur is liable for unfulfilled obligations with personal property. Including funds in the bank.

After liquidation, the responsible person may be approached with a tax audit and demand payment of debts or other obligations. The exception is official bankruptcy. But even in that case, liability for poor quality goods applies.

Obligations become invalid in the following cases:

• execution;
• debt forgiveness;
• compensation payments;
• offset of counterclaim;
• if the applicant and the defendant are one person;
• insurmountable circumstances beyond the control of the parties;
• acts of government bodies that do not allow fulfillment of obligations;
• death of the person responsible.

If the IP had a seal, there is no need to destroy it.

This you need to know: How to close an individual entrepreneur without employees in 2022

What documents will be needed

To close an individual entrepreneur, you will need the following documents:

1. Application for registration of termination of activities as an individual entrepreneur, drawn up in form P26001. We will tell you how to fill it out below.
2. A document confirming payment of the state duty (it only needs to be paid if you submit documents directly to the tax office on paper).
3. A certificate from the Pension Fund stating that you have provided them with information about the insured persons (needed only if you have employees). You don’t have to submit the certificate - in this case, the tax authorities will make a request to the Pension Fund on their own.

What should an individual entrepreneur pay for during downtime?

It must be said that the problem of suspension of activities applies to a greater extent to individual entrepreneurs than to LLCs. The fact is that a temporarily non-working organization, if it does not have employees and taxable property, should not pay anything to the budget. It is enough just to submit zero reports on time.

But individual entrepreneurs have their own specific payment - insurance premiums for themselves. In 2022, the fixed amount of contributions is 43,211 rubles, which is a lot for non-working individual entrepreneurs.

In addition to contributions, in some cases you also have to pay taxes, even if the business does not generate income. This applies to the PSN system, where the calculation of taxes is not related to real turnover. In the simplified taxation system, OSNO and unified agricultural tax regimes, the suspension of the activities of an individual entrepreneur does not lead to the payment of taxes, because here only received, and not potentially possible, income is taken into account.

Filling out an application on form P26001

The application form for liquidation of individual entrepreneur R26001 is unified - it is fixed by order of the Federal Tax Service of Russia dated August 31, 2020 No. ED-7-14 / [email protected] The new form is valid from November 25, 2020. It can be filled out on a computer or by hand - in black ink, legibly and without corrections. The application indicates the applicant's phone number and email address - the result of the application to the tax office will be sent to it. Section 3 of the form does not need to be filled out - tax officials will do this when they receive the document.

You can see and download the form and sample of such an application in our material.

Payment of state duty

In accordance with sub. 7 clause 1 art. 333.33 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, the amount of the state duty that must be paid when closing an individual entrepreneur is 160 rubles (20 percent of the amount of the fee charged when registering an individual entrepreneur; its amount is 800 rubles). You can save money by submitting documents not on paper, but via the Internet - in this case you will not have to pay (subclause 32, clause 3, article 333.35 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation).

The payment document must be attached to the application in form P26001 - the tax office will accept (clause 3 of Article 333.18 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation):

• payment order with a mark of execution, if paid by non-cash method;
• bank receipt if paid in cash.

A receipt for payment can be generated on the Federal Tax Service website - to do this, use the “Payment of state duty” service.

Methods for submitting documents

Documents are submitted to the tax office at the place of residence. You can find the inspectorate that services your address on the Federal Tax Service website. You can transfer documents in different ways:

1. By visiting the tax office in person or by submitting documents through a representative (in this case, you will need to issue a power of attorney in the name of the representative and have the entrepreneur’s signature on the application certified by a notary).
2. Through the MFC - also in person or through a representative.
3. Through a notary. He can certify the application with his electronic signature and submit it for consideration via the Internet (paragraph 3, paragraph 1, article 9 of Federal Law No. 129). The service is paid - it is better to check the cost with the notary himself in advance.
4. By mail. The documents must be sent by a valuable letter with a list of the contents and a notification of delivery to the addressee.
5. Through a special service on the Federal Tax Service portal. To close an individual entrepreneur through the taxpayer’s personal account, an electronic signature will be required. You can use an account from the State Services portal.
6. Through the portal "State Services". This is another way to close an individual entrepreneur online - go to the portal and fill out the registration form.

How to close an individual entrepreneur without employees

If there are no employees under an employment or civil contract:

• Fill out the application form No. P26001. This can be done through the Federal Tax Service. To send by Russian Post, the signature on the application must be certified by a notary.
• Pay the state fee in the amount of 160 rubles. — if you take paper documents to the tax office or send them by mail. If you close an individual entrepreneur through a notary, MFC or on the Federal Tax Service website, you do not need to pay it.

You can submit an application through the tax office website without an electronic signature. To confirm your identity, attach files with a scan of the first page of your passport (with a photo and information about its issuance) and a selfie with your passport open on the same pages.

If you send an application through any other service, you need an enhanced qualified electronic signature (ECES).

Within five working days after submitting the documents, the Federal Tax Service will deregister the individual entrepreneur and send a notification about this by email specified in the application. If you wish, you can obtain a paper sheet of the Unified State Register of Entrepreneurs from the tax office.

If an entrepreneur’s bank account was blocked by tax authorities for debts, the blocking should be lifted automatically after losing the individual entrepreneur status.

The declaration under the simplified tax system is submitted by the 25th day of the month following the closure of the individual entrepreneur. But it is also possible within the usual timeframe - until April 30 next year. There will be no fines for being late, since the Ministry of Finance and the Federal Tax Service have not yet reached a consensus on this issue. On the title page indicate a special tax period code indicating the liquidation of an individual entrepreneur - “50”.

Do I need to visit foundations?

If the entrepreneur had employees, after the closure of the individual entrepreneur he will have to notify all the funds to which he made contributions.

Thus, information about employees who worked for the individual entrepreneur must be transferred to the Pension Fund within a month from the date of the decision to close (paragraph 5, paragraph 2, article 9 of the federal law “On Individual..." dated 04/01/1996 No. 27-FZ ). If this is not done, it will not be possible to close the individual entrepreneur through the tax office - the tax authorities will reject the application for liquidation (see, for example, the resolution of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Central District dated November 26, 2012 in case No. A14-745/2012).

After the dismissal of the last employee and registration of the fact of closure of the individual entrepreneur, an application for deregistration with the Social Insurance Fund is submitted to the tax office. Copies of the order(s) on termination of employment contracts with employees must be attached to it. Within 14 days from the date of receipt of the documents, the FSS will deregister the former entrepreneur (subclause 3, clause 3, article 6 of Federal Law No. 125).

Results

So, in order to close an individual entrepreneur, you need to put the documents in order and fire the employees (if any).
After this, you can contact the tax office - in person or online. An application to close an individual entrepreneur is considered within five days. If an entrepreneur has no outstanding debts, information about the enterprise will be excluded from the Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs. You can find more complete information on the topic in ConsultantPlus. Free trial access to the system for 2 days.