Organizations involved in the extraction of minerals must pay mineral extraction tax, as well as carry out the calculation of land tax, which significantly increases the amount of costs. Reducing the tax burden is possible due to the optimization of the severance tax due to the use of the most profitable method of accounting for expenses. MET is calculated on the basis of the methodology for determining the amount of extracted minerals (Article 339 of the Tax Code); it can be calculated directly using measuring devices; indirect method - according to the available data on the mineral content in the extracted raw materials. The selected methodology should be applied throughout the entire period of production work, its correction is possible only with a change in the technology of development of mineral resources.
Also, the mineral extraction tax is calculated depending on the value of minerals, which can be determined in one of three ways: depending on selling prices, excluding state subsidies formed during a certain tax period; depending on the selling prices for the extracted minerals that have developed in a certain tax period; depending on the estimated cost of the extracted minerals, which includes direct costs - the costs associated with bringing the mineral raw materials in accordance with the standards, as well as indirect costs. In practice, enterprises that pay mineral extraction tax have the right to determine the estimated cost by two methods that differ in the procedure for taking indirect costs into account. The first of them is their distribution in proportion to the ratio of direct costs of mining to their total amount in the framework of the tax period; the second is the maintenance of separate tax accounting of indirect costs related and not related to production. Based on the value of these costs, related and not related to the process of mining, the taxpayer gets the opportunity to vary the estimated cost. After analyzing the composition of indirect costs and calculating the different ways of their distribution for both options, the company can choose the most optimal of them and fix it in the accounting policy. To assess the appropriateness of applying this or that method, it is worth considering an example of calculating the tax base for mineral extraction tax.
Suppose that an organization paying a mineral extraction tax has the following economic indicators: direct costs associated with production - 60,000 rubles, non-production costs - 56,000 rubles; indirect costs associated with production - 20,000 rubles; for primary processing - 30,000 rubles; for secondary processing - 80,000 rubles; overhead costs - 70,000 rubles.
In order to calculate the mineral extraction tax in the first way, it is necessary to find the share of direct costs related to production in the total amount of direct expenses: 60,000: (60,000 + 56,000) = 0.52. Indirect costs for determining the tax base are calculated by multiplying the total cost of this category by the share of direct costs: (20,000 + 30,000 + 80,000 + 70,000) x 0.52 = 104,000 rubles. Thus, the estimated cost is 164,000 rubles (104,000 + 60,000).
To consider the second method of calculation, it is necessary to separate the indirect costs of the primary processing into two groups: costs directly related to the production process - 20,000 rubles; overhead costs - 10,000 rubles. The share of direct costs related to mining is determined similarly to the first option and is 0.52. The amount of indirect costs included in the estimated cost is calculated by the formula: K1 + K2 * K, where K1 - indirect costs related to mining; K2 - overhead costs to be distributed; K is the share of direct costs. The calculation is as follows: (20,000 + 20,000 + (10,000 + 70,000) x 0.52) = 81,600 rubles. Indirect costs for secondary processing are not involved in the calculations, since they are not directly related to the production process. The estimated value of minerals in this case will be 141600 rubles (81,600 + 60,000).
As can be seen from the above example, the application of the second calculation method reduces the tax base by 22,400 rubles. It is worth noting that this technique is suitable for those enterprises that are engaged in mining not for their further sale, but for use in the production of any products. In order to optimize the mineral tax in this way, the company needs to organize a separate accounting of indirect costs, which will require additional labor costs. On the other hand, its use will allow avoiding claims of tax authorities, since the scheme is based not on legislative gaps, but on the use of a more complex method of calculation.