Legislation amendments on application of cash register equipment in calculating

In 2016 the amendments to the Federal Law №54 of 22.05.2003 "On the application of cash registers in the implementation of cash payments and (or) calculations with the use of payment cards" were adopted.

Let us point out, that the Federal Law identifies:

• fields, rules and application features of cash register equipment (CRE);
• the procedure for maintenance of the CRE Register and Fiscal Driver Register;
• the procedure for examination of CRE models and technical means of fiscal data operator;
• requirements to the CRE and fiscal driver, procedure for registration, reregistration and removal of CRE;
• the procedure and application conditions for CRE as well as the procedure for obtaining a permission on a fiscal data processing;
• requirements to the cash cheque and accountable forms;
• responsibilities of the entities and individual entrepreneurs, carrying out the calculations, and the rights of the users;
• the rights and responsibilities of tax authorities during verification and supervision over the usage of cash register equipment.

In practice the changes in legislation mean that starting from 1 July 2017 all owners of the cash registers are obligated to use new equipment fitted with fiscal driver and pass the cash cheques to tax authorities online. After 1 February 2017 to register the old models of cash registers in tax authorities will be impossible; after 1 July their usage will be impossible as well.

Since 1 July 2018 the businessmen operating under the uniform tax on imputed income system and patent taxation system will be obligated to use new cash registers.

The data transfer must be carried out through the certified operators of fiscal data. According to the Federal Tax Service, as of 18 November 2016 five entities are already carrying out such activity: NAO Energy Systems and Communications, LLC Taxcom, LLC Evotor OFD, LLC Yarus and LLC PETER-SERVICE Special technologies.

In retail trade the paper cheque will remain mandatory and it must be presented regardless of the buyer’s requirements. In addition to the above, according to innovations, the buyer will be able to ask for the cheque in electronic format and the seller will be obligated to send it by e-mail or sms message. The cheque will have new mandatory requisite - product range.

According to the experts, during the start-up period of implementation, the innovations won’t significantly influence on the improvement of business transparency due to rather high price of software and technical re-equipment and certain difficulties of small and medium business with Internet access or connection quality.

However, the bill of the Federal Tax Service, prepared for the Government in accordance with the Instructions of the President of the Russian Federation and the State Duma, is aimed to overcome some of the obstacles. The draft federal law provides the procedure for granting of tax deductions to taxpayers to cover the expenses related with the adoption of new usage procedure for cash register equipment.