THE VALUE ADDED TAX TRANSFORMATION AND MODERN PRACTICES OF IMPROVING ITS COLLECTION

Abstract

This article deals with the history and current practice of handling the value added tax (VAT). The authors have analyzed the main advantages and disadvantages of VAT: the prevailing negative impact on the cash flows of VAT payers; the complexity of the tax, which increases the costs of its collection from the state and from taxpayers; the low ratio of actual VAT income to potential; the inability to prevent certain types of tax fraud. The authors explain their thesis that the prospects for the VAT development are connected, firstly, with overcoming the inherent tax deficiencies, and secondly, with the transformation of tax under the influence of the external environment. This article studies the directions of tax transformation and the objective prerequisites for applying a single standard tax rate to a wide tax base. The data on the structural transformation of the economy in developed countries and Russia and its impact on VAT are analyzed. Particular attention is paid to the alternative tax collection practices: reverse payment mechanism, split-payment mechanisms, and single window method. The experience of using tax lotteries as a method of increa­sing the collection of value added tax is analyzed in detail. The considered mechanisms for collecting VAT effectively reduce tax evasion arising from the overestimation of VAT deductions, but can not deal with the concealment of income. All the new methods are associated with an increase in the costs of tax administration and approval, require an increase in reporting for taxpayers, introduce new responsibilities for the exchange of data with tax authorities, including the transfer of accounting data and invoice information (including in real time). The reverse payment mechanism and the split payment method, change the nature of VAT collection, canceling fractional payments, which are usually considered as the main advantage of VAT.