Value added tax - an indirect tax that is received in the budget as a part of the added value that is created in the process of production, performance of work and rendering of services. This tax was introduced in France in 1954 and found its application in 137 countries. Only in the USA and Japan, VAT has replaced sales tax at a rate of three to fifteen percent. The highest VAT rates in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Iceland are 25 percent, other countries apply tax at a rate of 20 percent.
VAT tax returns are submitted to tax authorities by organizations, as well as individual entrepreneurs - taxpayers. The obligations to pay this tax by the Tax Code are regulated. The form and procedure for filling out a tax return are approved by an appropriate order of the Ministry of Finance. The completed document is provided in electronic or paper form, and for payers with a number of employees from 100 people, filing in electronic form is required. The deadline for submitting a declaration is until the 20th day of the month following the reporting period.
Today in the tax legislation of Russia there are three VAT rates: 0%, 10% and 18%. A rate of 10% is used by agricultural enterprises when selling goods for children, food, periodicals and medical products. Zero VAT rate is used for export and for a specific list of traffic. It is with the application of this rate that the concept of “zero VAT return” exists.
A VAT return, in addition to a positive tax charge, may also contain a negative result, which is called a “VAT refund application”. This situation arises if, as a result of the tax period, the total amount of tax deductions (tax credit) exceeds the amount of tax liabilities. In other words, if during the tax period the organization bought more products subject to VAT than it sold. In this case, the payer can submit, in addition to the tax return, also a VAT refund application. If the tax authority in the course of a desk audit within seven days confirms the operations displayed in the declaration, then the head of the tax service takes a positive decision. If there is a tax debt from the payer, repayment of funds to the current account is carried out for the difference in the repayment of this debt.
The new VAT tax return has been in force since 2010 and has an electronic format.
If the VAT return is filed electronically, the payer must fulfill two conditions: the current report form and the required format that is appropriate for the automated processing of the received data. However, there are disagreements between these two parameters in connection with different time intervals for their adoption. So, the declaration form is approved by the Ministry of Finance, and the electronic reporting format is approved by the Federal Tax Service.
The new VAT declaration has been reduced to a machine-oriented (unified) option with the decomposition of data into cells. Changed the settings for the formation of an electronic file, namely: font, character height and print format.
The VAT declaration has undergone some changes in its individual sections. She got a little smaller. So, if earlier this document was formed on 12 sheets, now now - on 10 sheets. The volume reduction occurred due to the combination on one sheet of section 3 and the removal of section 8.
Thus, due to the introduction of new technologies in tax administration, the formation of a VAT tax return is automated, which greatly simplifies the work of an accountant, and submitting reports via the Internet saves the time of organizations' specialists.