The current legislation on taxes and fees consists of the Tax Code (hereinafter - the Tax Code), as well as acts created on its basis at the federal and municipal levels, the effect of which provides that if they entered into force and were adopted before the entry into force of the Tax Code RF, they retain their legal relevance and act only in that part that does not conflict with the Tax Code. This rule establishes that the Tax Code of the Russian Federation is not only the main, but also the supreme law on taxes and fees in the country.
The Tax Code of the Russian Federation includes two dialectically interconnected parts. One of them, the first, defines the basic concepts and categories used in tax law. It also sets out the fundamental rights of taxpayers, their main responsibilities, examines the rules for conducting verification procedures, and defines some basic amounts of fines for committing tax offenses.
The second part includes chapters that set out the rules regarding tax procedures and actions for individual taxes. These, for example, legislation on taxes and fees, include VAT and income tax. It should be borne in mind that various departmental orders and instructions do not apply to legislative acts, and even methodological recommendations developed by the Ministry of Taxes of the Russian Federation do not apply to them. These documents are required or recommended for use only by the tax authorities themselves. Mandatory for taxpayers, according to the law, are instructions explaining the procedure for filling out declarations.
Normative acts of other levels are not included in the legislation on taxes and fees, which is valid in the territory of the Russian Federation. For example, published by institutions at various levels of the executive branch on taxation issues, they are not authorized to amend or supplement in any way the current legislation on taxes and fees.
The Tax Code of the Russian Federation legitimizes the system of taxes levied throughout the territory in a unified and mandatory manner, and also establishes and discloses the fundamental principles of taxation in the Russian Federation, which should guide all institutions related to tax collection activities.
The legal relations that are regulated by the Tax Code of the Russian Federation are a system of power relations regarding the formation, establishment, maintenance and application in practice of actions to levy taxes and fees. Also included here are legal relations that arise directly in the process of tax control, which can be such as appeals of acts, protests against the actions of specific officials, facts and grounds for holding them liable.
The exception is actions related to customs payments, as a special type of tax. These procedures and actions are considered by customs legislation.
For tax laws, there are some special rules for their entry into legal force. Among other things, they fall within the scope of the constitutional provision establishing the presence or absence of retroactive force or legal inconsistency in their operation. In accordance with the provisions of this principle, a discrepancy is recognized if there is at least one of the listed circumstances that characterizes the legislative act:
- it is adopted by an institution that does not have the right to accept such;
- if it cancels the rights that directly arise from the Tax Code of the Russian Federation;
- if it changes, supplements or limits the obligations of subjects of tax relations;
- prohibits actions permitted by the Code for taxpayers;
- prohibits actions permitted by the Code for institutions of the state tax system;
- changes the grounds, procedure and conditions of tax legal relations;
- changes the wording and content of categories and terms that apply in the Tax Code of the Russian Federation;
- for other parameters does not meet the requirements and the meaning of the provisions of the Tax Code.
Legal relations within the country are regulated not only by the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, but by separate acts that regulate a specific area of taxation, which cannot be provided for in the Code, due to its volume. These, for example, include the law on income tax, which is adopted on the basis of factors of the diversity of types and forms of doing business, and therefore the types and forms of taxation.