Today it is impossible to imagine any economic system in which considerable attention is not paid to taxes.
The role of taxes in the modern economic system is very large. Taxes and the tax system not only act as the main formative part of the budget, but also are a powerful tool to stimulate the development of the economy along an innovative path. In addition, the tax system also performs traditional functions - it regulates the social sphere, participates in the redistribution of national wealth. Moreover, this influence of the tax system is constantly increasing.
Today, the system of taxes and fees of the Russian Federation has significantly increased its role, which is due to the development and expansion of the non-state sector of the economy.
A tax is a compulsory payment of a gratuitous nature that is levied from an organization or from an individual in the form of a portion of the funds held by the latter on the basis of property or economic management.
The characteristic of gratuitousness in this case means that the payment itself does not imply a reciprocal obligation on the part of the state, thus, almost any tax system is arranged. The types of taxes that exist in a given state are determined by many circumstances, and these circumstances can be both long-term and short-term, making the tax system a dynamic mechanism.
However, with all its changes, one parameter always remains constant - taxes and the tax system are always correlated with state enforcement.
In modern tax legislation in Russia, the following basic concepts exist: tax and duty. Their difference is determined by target and procedural factors. By collection, as a rule, it is customary to understand a contribution that requires a response in the interests of the payer. The tax, as already noted, is not a target relationship, and therefore acts as a means of direct replenishment of the budget.
Tax regulation involves an effective impact on the interests of taxpayers, and on the interests of property. Some researchers consider the emergence of private property as the determining condition for the appearance of such a phenomenon as taxes and the tax system. Emphasizing the principle of this issue, I. Gorsky calls the need for private property as the first, fundamental principle of taxation formulated by A. Smith. Marxist ideas about the withering away of the state led to the actual destruction of full-fledged tax relations during the life of a generation in our country.
The established quasi-taxes were in fact additions to regulated prices in a strictly determined system of relations with the administrative command command. Based on the policy plans, the quantity of output was predetermined in advance. Output in a closed economy correlated with consumption. The sales tax, as a rule, was established on products of final consumption taking into account the individual characteristics of the goods and was distinguished by a variety of rates that did not affect either production or consumption. Excise taxes were not much different from sales tax - except perhaps by a group of taxable goods. Income tax was paid to state revenue in the form of withdrawal of the free balance of excess of income over expenses of enterprises; personal benefits and deferrals of payment were granted. “Perestroika,” which began in the late 80s, implied, first of all, changes in property relations. However, even today, existing taxes and the tax system reflect the inferiority of tax relations under state ownership. Civil law, defining the concept of ownership, establishes that, as the owner of all property of unitary enterprises, the state has the right to dispose of this property at its discretion. The application of tax legislation to such enterprises is more statistical than economic. Thus, the objective of the tax policy measures is to ensure that the interests of both the owner of the income and the entity having income on the basis of other property rights other than the right of ownership, on the one hand, and the state withdrawing a certain part of such income are ensured on the other hand, to focus society’s resources on the priorities of economic and social development.
The most important feature of the modern world economic system is the intensive involvement in the economic turnover of intellectual property (IPO). The basis for the distribution of a specific product - the results of intellectual activity - on the world market is a developed patent system, copyright protection, an active licensing policy of companies.