Hello! In this article, we will talk about the suspension of an individual entrepreneur.

Today you will learn:

• Can an individual entrepreneur take a break;
• What are the options for this;
• What responsibilities can not be removed from the individual entrepreneur.

Can an individual entrepreneur suspend its activities

For one reason or another, entrepreneurs sometimes wonder - is it possible to suspend activities without incurring unnecessary costs? This issue is often raised by businessmen, but rarely by lawyers.

According to the laws of the Russian Federation, an individual entrepreneur cannot temporarily suspend his work. This option is simply not provided, which means that there is no such procedure and scheme of actions.

In Russia, the activity of an individual entrepreneur can only be terminated. There is no provisional suspension.

From a legal point of view, it always works, but whether he actually conducts activities is his own business. And even if an entrepreneur decides to "take a vacation", the state will not exempt him from filing reports and paying taxes, contributions to state funds.

On the other hand, on some (except,) it is possible to file zero tax returns and thus free yourself from all expenses except contributions to the Pension Fund. But, you must admit that this is not extra spending, but taking care of your own future.

Obligations of an individual entrepreneur who has suspended his activities

Even if an individual entrepreneur does not conduct any business and decides to temporarily suspend all business, he simply cannot relieve himself of a number of duties.

Let's list them:

• Reporting to the Federal Tax Service, Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, FSS;
• Pension fund contributions;
• payment of taxes (if the temporary suspension affects a business on UTII or a patent), in other regimes - filing zero tax returns;
• Compliance labor rights hired workers.

Consequences of the suspension of the IP

There are no penalties for temporary derogation from business for individual entrepreneurs. But only if he did not stop fulfilling his obligations to the state, which we discussed above.

Otherwise, an entrepreneur who has returned from voluntary leave may face large fines for non-submitted reports and unpaid taxes.

It is useless to prove in court the absence of actual entrepreneurial activity - this does not exempt the individual entrepreneur from his obligations.

It is impossible to sue such fines, since they fully comply with the legislation, which states that an individual entrepreneur conducts business all the time that he is registered in this role.

How to suspend the activity of an individual entrepreneur

As we have already said, according to the law, an individual entrepreneur cannot suspend his activities, but if the need for this nevertheless arises, one has to look for workarounds.

Before deciding in what way to formalize a pause in entrepreneurship, it is worth determining for how long the suspension is planned. If it comes about a long enough period, then the most obvious option is, and then open it again.

To suspend the activities of an individual entrepreneur through liquidation, it is necessary to submit to the tax office:

1. Statement about.
2. Receipt for payment of state duty.
3. Sometimes - a certificate from the Pension Fund. In fact, the tax office itself can send a request to the PF, but not all offices do this.

Termination confirmation will be ready in five business days.

• Submit all reports to the FSS within 12 days;
• Notify about its closure of the FIU, pay off existing debts;
• Deregister the cash register and close - if any.

Register again as individual entrepreneur a citizen can at any time (even after a few days). To do this, you will have to submit an appropriate application again to the registering authority (tax office at the place of residence). There are also no restrictions on the number of openings and closings for individual entrepreneurs.

The costs of closing and opening an individual entrepreneur (160 and 800 rubles of state duty) in most cases are much less expenses on taxes and deductions to funds awaiting an entrepreneur who has suspended but has not closed.

An individual entrepreneur may not issue short-term breaks in his work in any way, but pass tax reporting and you will still have to pay contributions to the Pension Fund in the same way.

Payers of taxes depending on the income of the enterprise can suspend activities without closing the sole proprietor with practically no costs.

Entrepreneurs working in the UTII system can also minimize costs by voluntarily submitting an application for deregistration by imputation. During the "vacation" it is possible to switch to and submit zero reports. With the return to work, you can immediately apply for registration on UTII.

Various life circumstances often force entrepreneurs to temporarily retire. As a result, there is such a situation as the suspension of the activities of the individual entrepreneur. This provision should be carefully studied, since the practice is such that entrepreneurs who temporarily stopped their activities, including for reasons related to the impossibility of doing business due to lack of financial resources, find themselves in an even more difficult situation, since they did not take into account all the consequences of the suspension of their activities.

How to suspend the activity of an individual entrepreneur?

Perhaps the most important question for entrepreneurs who want to temporarily move away from business: how to suspend the activities of individual entrepreneurs? Let's answer right away that Russian legislation does not provide for such a possibility in principle. The current Civil Code of the Russian Federation and other by-laws proceed from the assumption that the activity of an individual entrepreneur can only be terminated. Therefore, if an individual entrepreneur does not conduct activities, then it is impossible to document this in any way. As a result, due to legal implications, the fact that the entrepreneur does not carry out commercial activities does not arise.

Therefore, the temporary suspension of the activity of an individual entrepreneur is reduced only to the fact that the entrepreneur himself does not take any action aimed at making a profit. At the same time, the entrepreneur has the right to do this at any time from the moment of state registration as an individual entrepreneur.

In practice, it is not uncommon for a situation when a very long period of time passes from the moment of registration to the beginning of the actual implementation of activities. At the same time, the legislation does not contain any restrictions on the time of commencement of activities, as well as on the time of its implementation.

The status of an individual entrepreneur is indefinite and has no time frame for the timing of entrepreneurial activity. In this connection, the suspension of the activity of an individual entrepreneur is possible at any time and depends only on the desire of the entrepreneur himself. He does not need to justify or confirm this decision to anyone.

The Russian legislation also does not provide for a statement on the suspension of the activity of an individual entrepreneur, since there is no such concept in the law. There are no other forms of documents that must be submitted in order to prove the fact of the suspension of activities. At the same time, the entrepreneur is not relieved of all the obligations that are assigned to him according to the norms of the current legislation.

Obligations of an individual entrepreneur in case of suspension of activities

So even if the individual entrepreneur has not been in business for a long time, he is still obliged to submit all established forms of reports to the Federal Tax Service, Pension Fund of Russia, FSS. In addition, he must pay a fixed fee to the pension fund, as well as transfer tax payments if the individual entrepreneur is on the unified tax on imputed income or the patent taxation system. In other cases, for example, when using the general taxation regime, the payment of taxes is not provided, but only if the entrepreneur does not receive any income, which must be confirmed by the submission of zero tax returns.

The suspension of an individual entrepreneur does not also release him from other obligations that are related to both entrepreneurial activity, and in connection with the implementation of actions as an individual. It should also be noted that if an individual entrepreneur has wage-earners, then he is obliged to fulfill the duties of a tax agent in respect of them, as well as to ensure the observance of their labor rights in the process of suspension of activities.

Consequences of the suspension of the IP

The temporary suspension of the sole proprietorship does not entail any legal consequences for the individual entrepreneur, but only if the current legislation was not violated during this period. In life, the situation develops in such a way that an entrepreneur, wanting to retire from business, simply turns off the business: closes point of sale, preserves workshops, etc. - and begins to engage in other matters not related to entrepreneurship. This continues until he receives a bunch of notifications from the tax authorities about the penalties assigned to him for not submitted reports, not listed tax payments and other mandatory fees. At the same time, the individual entrepreneur has not been operating for a long time.

It is useless to sue in such a situation, since the FTS is right in such a situation, as long as a citizen is considered an individual entrepreneur, he has all the obligations provided for such a status and the actual termination of activities is not a reason for terminating the obligations of an individual entrepreneur. Recall that the law does not provide for any declaration on the termination of the activity of an individual entrepreneur, there is only the possibility of termination of activity on the basis of an application by the individual entrepreneur himself, or by a court decision, in cases established by law. Therefore, if an entrepreneur does not plan to conduct activities, especially for a long time, then it makes sense to apply for the termination of the status of an individual entrepreneur. Moreover, the legislation does not limit the possibility of multiple termination and obtaining this status.

In this regard, the answer to the question: "Is it possible to suspend the activities of an individual entrepreneur?" - looks like this: an entrepreneur can stop engaging in entrepreneurial activity, but at the same time retain the powers of an individual entrepreneur, which entails the preservation of all the obligations of an individual entrepreneur. This option is possible when a break in activity is not planned for a long period. In a different situation, it is advisable to terminate your registration as an individual entrepreneur, otherwise such a suspension can lead to serious consequences. However, if you do not forget about your duties, then you can avoid troubles and return at any time to such a difficult, but fascinating world entrepreneurship.

Suspension of IP activity is a procedure not provided for by the current legislation. The desire to temporarily "freeze" a business can arise due to family, personal circumstances, the need to take a break, losses, etc.

Suspension can be made without notifying the state, without filing an application and other things. From the point of view of bureaucratic procedures, it does not entail consequences.

Unambiguously answer the question: "How to suspend the activities of an individual entrepreneur?" - it is forbidden.

Voluntary procedure

The entrepreneur himself does not have the right to suspend work for a short period of time. Until the moment of official liquidation, he is obliged to fulfill obligations to the state and counterparties. In fact, an individual entrepreneur has the right only to completely terminate the existence of the status.

If a businessman wants to suspend work officially for a short period of time, then this option is not suitable. You will have to go through the registration procedures twice - to close an individual entrepreneur and before reopening a business.

The suspension of activities may represent its unofficial, but real termination - the individual entrepreneur retains its status, but the business does not conduct and does not receive profit.

Even this period is accompanied by the duties of an entrepreneur:

1. timely submit reports and declarations to state bodies;
2. make mandatory contributions for yourself to the Pension Fund and FFOMS.

Before choosing this method of suspension, you can determine whether it is profitable, since the businessman will not receive profit from the enterprise, but the costs will remain the same.

Failure to comply with obligations entails consequences, as for existing entrepreneurs - fines and legal proceedings. When filling out the documentation, you need to draw up zero declarations. In the profit column, "0" is indicated.

An individual entrepreneur is not exempt from the obligation to keep a book of income and expenses.

If an entrepreneur has employees, then with a temporary suspension of the business, they cannot be reduced due to liquidation. In practice, these actions are not performed. An entrepreneur, how an individual entrepreneur must pay wages and perform other duties to employees. The need to submit reports to the FSS in a timely manner and make payments for employees is not excluded.

In the event of a temporary suspension of work, you can agree to terminate employment contract by agreement of the parties. Otherwise, the dismissal is considered illegal.

Important! The duties of an individual entrepreneur during the period of business suspension are submitting reports to the Federal Tax Service, the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation and the FSS, paying taxes in accordance with the selected regime, making payments to non-budgetary funds.

Payment of taxes during periods of inactivity

Obligations to the tax inspectorate remain during the period of validity of the IP status. The amount of taxes is determined based on the selected taxation regime.

Entrepreneurs on OSNO and STS can submit zero declarations. Tax is not paid in case of non-receipt of profits. Individual entrepreneurs who have chosen UTII and PSN make mandatory payments regardless of the fact of doing business.

Business Suspension Legislation

The current regulatory legal acts regulate in detail the procedure for liquidating the status of an individual entrepreneur. The norms are enshrined in the Civil Code of the Russian Federation and Federal Law No. 129.

A break from work on a voluntary basis is not regulated by the legislator. The application form for the suspension of activities for a while has not been developed. In fact, these actions are the right of the individual entrepreneur. He can do business or not. IP status is unlimited. An entrepreneur may be deprived of it only in cases established by law. Lack of real profit and work is not a reason for the liquidation of an individual entrepreneur.

From a bureaucratic point of view, there is no meaning to the fact of the temporary suspension of a businessman's work. The acts presented to the entrepreneur during the period of operation remain legitimate.

Practical experience of business suspension

Entrepreneurs do not always suspend activities correctly. Most often, they simply retire - they close a store, an enterprise, etc. In this case, bureaucratic procedures are not carried out. This error is fraught with fines and sanctions.

This situation ends after a businessman receives notifications from government services with the requirement to submit a declaration, pay contributions, and so on.

It will not work to challenge the decision of the tax inspectorate or off-budget funds. The actions of public services, in this case, do not contradict the current legislation.

Alternative option

When an individual entrepreneur wants to stop working for a long time, then he has the right to liquidate this status.

The procedure includes the following steps:

1. formation of a statement and a package of documented information;
2. payment of state fees;
3. transfer of the collected data to the tax office;
4. obtaining a ready-made certificate after 5 working days.

The process is the same as when opening an IP. According to the results of the holding, changes are made to the USRIP. From this moment on, a businessman should not conduct business. Actions to implement it can be declared illegal and sanctions can be imposed on the offender.

This option will avoid the cost of fees and payments. The individual entrepreneur is released from the obligation to submit reports and pay contributions to the treasury. He only needs to properly liquidate the case. Otherwise - fines and sanctions from the state.

Important! The legislator does not restrict the right of individuals to repeatedly open and close the status of an individual entrepreneur. The entrepreneur can resume operations at any convenient time.

Suspension of IP activity is a term developed by real practice. An entrepreneur has the right to engage in business or abandon it for a while. This decision is his right. It should not be forgotten that even a temporary suspension of activities is not a basis for release from obligations to the state. They will remain valid until the IP is liquidated.

Business registration imposes on the citizen whole line obligations. Often, the payment of taxes and fees is not directly related to the actual income received. That is why, in the event of unfavorable market conditions, experts recommend temporarily suspending commercial activities. Since the law does not contain a legal mechanism, solutions must be sought independently. In practice, two approaches have emerged.

Business Suspension Methods

The law recognizes only three options for changing the status of an entrepreneur. Merchants can notify about the start of a business, make adjustments to information about themselves, or apply for deregistration. It is impossible to officially freeze the activity.

1. Liquidation. The specialists found a solution in the absence of restrictions on the number of registrations. Individuals can run a business multiple times. If the actual termination of the sole proprietorship is expected for a long period, it makes sense to exclude information from the unified register. In this case, the obligation to pay fixed insurance fees and submit reports will be removed.
2. Suspension without liquidation. The merchant has the right to keep the status. To minimize the fiscal burden, it will be necessary to draw up a number of documents, as well as organize the regular submission of zero declarations.

Lawyers remind that "freezing" can be a sanction. The corresponding decisions are made by the controlling services when serious violations are detected. The blocking period does not exceed 90 days.

How to suspend activities to avoid paying taxes and fees

Most simple solution is the complete cessation of commercial operations and sending zero reporting to the regulatory authorities. In this case, the entrepreneur will have to transfer the cost of the insurance year to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation and the Federal Medical Insurance Fund of the Russian Federation. The tax burden will depend on the regime chosen.

You can avoid paying fixed contributions to extrabudgetary funds in the following cases:

• conscription;
• maternity leave, caring for a child up to one and a half years;
• deprivation of the opportunity to do business as a result of moving with a military spouse or a diplomat spouse;
• caring for a disabled child, a relative over the age of 80, a disabled person of the first group.

Continued cessation of activities must be documented. The procedure for exemption from fees is enshrined in Law 400-FZ of 12/28/2013. In particular, article 12 contains a list of periods included in the insurance experience. The rules for confirming pension rights have been clarified by government decree No. 1015. A direct reference to the norm is present in paragraph 7 of Article 430 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation. Detailed explanations on this matter were given by the Federal Tax Service of Russia in April 2017.

Stopping the accrual of taxes will allow:

1. UTII. Termination of contracts for the use of premises or vehicles. The task is to officially get rid of taxable objects.
2. STS and OSN. Here you will need to stop business operations.
3. PSN. A patent may simply not be acquired.

If the merchant was on a common system, it is better to switch to a special mode. In this case, the number of documents and the level of risk will be reduced several times.

What reports an entrepreneur will have to submit

It will be possible to completely abandon filling out declarations and unified forms only if the individual entrepreneur is liquidated. By temporarily stopping the activity, the businessman is obliged to organize the sending of zero reports to the inspectorate. Tax payers will have to submit documents annually, entrepreneurs for UTII - every quarter. Preservation common system taxation will require the preparation of declarations for VAT, personal income tax and other mandatory payments. The service of generating and sending reports during the period of "freezing" of business is provided by accounting centers.

Fines and Sanctions for Violations of the Suspension Procedure

Unhindered resumption of IP activities is possible only with proper registration. Lack of business income does not protect a businessman from fines. If a merchant was resting without closing the company and not submitting reports, severe sanctions will be applied to him. Negative consequences will become:

• fines in the amount of 1 thousand rubles for the absence of each declaration;
• arrears on fixed contributions;
• penalties for unpaid amounts on time.

It will not be easy to dispute the charges, because the courts attribute complete passivity to dishonesty.

Lawyers advise to approach the suspension carefully. If you have to give up the business for several years, it makes sense to close the sole proprietor. The cost of re-registration is only 800 rubles. The risk of presenting arrears, fines and penalties in this case is minimal.

The status of an entrepreneur should be maintained in order to maintain a business reputation with a short period of "freezing". The zero reporting option is suitable for licensees, patents, permits and approvals. A colossal amount of funds is spent on obtaining such documents, and liquidation leads to their revocation.

Suspension of IP activities is an opportunity that must be used very carefully: the practice is such that entrepreneurs who temporarily stopped work, including for reasons related to a lack of financial resources, find themselves in an even more difficult situation, since they did not take into account all the consequences.

How to suspend an activity

Perhaps the most important question for entrepreneurs who want to temporarily move away from business: how to suspend the activities of individual entrepreneurs? Let's answer right away that Russian legislation does not provide for such a possibility in principle.

The current Civil Code of the Russian Federation and others proceed from the fact that the activities of an individual entrepreneur can only be terminated.

Therefore, if an individual entrepreneur does not conduct business, then it is impossible to document this in any way, that is, legally, the fact that the entrepreneur does not carry out commercial activities does not arise.

Therefore, the temporary suspension of the IP is reduced only to the fact that he himself does not take any action aimed at making a profit. At the same time, the entrepreneur has the right to do this at any time from the moment of his own.

In practice, it is not uncommon for a situation when a very long period of time passes from the moment of registration to the beginning of the actual implementation of the business. At the same time, the legislation does not contain any restrictions on the time of commencement of activities, as well as on the time of its implementation.

In other cases, for example, when using, the payment of taxes is not provided, but only if the entrepreneur does not receive any income, which must be confirmed by the submission of zero tax returns.

Suspension of entrepreneurship does not also exempt from other obligations that are related both to the business and to the implementation of the actions of an individual.

It should also be taken into account that if an individual entrepreneur has employees, then he is obliged to fulfill the duties of a tax agent in relation to them, as well as to ensure that their labor rights are respected in the event of a suspension of activities. Consequences of the suspension of activities

The temporary suspension of the sole proprietor's business does not entail any legal consequences for him, but only if the current legislation was not violated during this period. In life, the situation develops in such a way that an entrepreneur, wishing to retire from business, simply winds up the business: closes a sales outlet, preserves workshops, etc. and begins to engage in other matters not related to entrepreneurship.

This continues until he receives a bunch of notifications from the tax authorities about the penalties imposed on him for non-submitted reports, unlisted tax payments and other mandatory fees. At the same time, the individual entrepreneur has not been operating for a long time.

It is useless to sue in such a situation, since the FTS is right in such a situation: as long as a citizen is considered an individual entrepreneur, he has all the obligations stipulated for such a status, and the actual termination of activity is not a reason for terminating the performance of an individual entrepreneur's duties.

Recall that the law does not provide for any declaration on the termination of the activity of an individual entrepreneur, there is only the possibility of termination of activity on the basis of an application by the individual entrepreneur himself or by a court decision, in cases established by law.

In this regard, the answer to the question of whether it is possible to suspend the activities of an individual entrepreneur is as follows: an entrepreneur can stop engaging in entrepreneurial activity, but at the same time he retains the powers of an individual entrepreneur, which entails the preservation of all his duties.

This option is possible when a break in activity is not planned for a long period. In a different situation, it is advisable to terminate your registration as an individual entrepreneur, otherwise such a suspension can lead to serious consequences.

Temporary suspension of IP activity: Video