On December 15-16th of 2020, the XIV All-Russian Conference of Ombudsmen for the Protection of Entrepreneurs' Rights is being held at the World Trade Center.  

The main topic of the forum was the discussion of the main areas of business support in 2021.  Business ombudsmen from 85 Russian regions and representatives of the Ministry of Economic Development, Ministry of Industry and Trade, VEB.RF, FTS, Rosreestr discuss the most pressing issues facing small and medium-sized businesses at the end of 2020.

    On December 15th, the section "Support and restoration of SMEs in the new realities" was attended by the Presidential Ombudsman for the Protection of the Rights of Entrepreneurs Boris Titov, President of OPORA RUSSIA Alexander Kalinin, Governor of the Kaliningrad Region Anton Alikhanov, Head of the Department of Entrepreneurship and Innovative Development of the City of Moscow Alexey Fursin  , as well as representatives of the Ministry of Economic Development, VEB.RF and JSC "Corporation SME".

    What forms of SMEs will survive next year, how the reform of development institutions under the auspices of VEB.RF is able to change the picture of Russian SMEs, what sectoral areas need to be stimulated so that the role and weight of SMEs in the economy grow.  These and other issues were discussed within the framework of the session.

    For 10 months of 2020, commissioners in the regions, on average, received 35% more written applications than in 2019 (13 836 in 2020, 10 201 in 2019).  The number of requests to the Federal Commissioner for the Protection of Entrepreneurs' Rights increased by 16% (2,878 in 2020, 2,474 in 2019).  Boris Titov, the President's Commissioner for the Protection of Entrepreneurs' Rights, announced this during the XIV All-Russian Conference of Ombudsmen for the Protection of the Rights of Entrepreneurs.

    A special section of the annual report of the Federal Commissioner in 2020 was devoted to the fight against the pandemic.  As a result, the list of affected industries according to OKVED was supplemented, the restriction on work for less than a year to receive support was lifted, the deadline for submitting applications for subsidies was extended, NPOs were equated to business in education, and the possibility of deferring payments for property purchased on a preferential basis by SMEs was provided.

    “In addition to proposals related to the pandemic, 335 systemic business problems were identified in the annual report,” recalled Boris Titov.  - Some of them have already been resolved thanks to our participation.  In particular, the register of SMEs will be updated every month;  new sanitary requirements for public catering were adopted;  the mandatory audit of accounting for small businesses was canceled, the moratorium on inspections was extended until the end of 2021;  mitigating amendments to the patent taxation system were adopted;  a joint instruction from the Prosecutor General's Office, the FSB, the TFR, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Federal Customs Service was given to strengthen control and supervision over the conduct of criminal cases in the field of entrepreneurial activity;  extended tax holidays for new entrepreneurs;  insurance premiums for individual entrepreneurs have been recalculated using the “income minus expenses” system.

  “2020 turned out to be very intense for us,” summed up Boris Titov.  "It is equally important to outline plans for the coming months, during which it will be necessary to help the business recover from the difficult consequences of this year.

    In the afternoon, meetings were held with representatives of Rosreestr, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Economic Development and Sberbank.

    The meeting with Rosreestr was attended by Oksana Kastanyo, head of the real estate economy department of Rosreestr;  Director of the State Budgetary Institution of the Leningrad Region "LenKadOtsenka" Yuri Zinkovsky.  The meeting was chaired by Anton Sviridenko, Advisor to the Presidential Commissioner for the Protection of Entrepreneurs' Rights.

    During the meeting, the following issues were considered:

The cadastral value of objects and its challenge,

What impact will the Rosreestr digital transformation program have on the assessment and challenge process?

How the USRN data mart will work, which is scheduled to launch in 2021,

When to wait for the creation of a geoplatform, which will include all data on the territorial structure of Russia.

    The meeting with representatives of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade and Sberbank was moderated by Anastasia Alekhnovich, head of the Expert Center under the Presidential Commissioner for the Protection of Entrepreneurs' Rights.

    “I would put tax policy issues at the top of the list of anti-crisis measures,” said Boris Titov, Plenipotentiary under the President of Russia for the Protection of the Rights of Entrepreneurs, in his speech.  - We are now discussing whether to give additional money to business in the coming year, and if to give, then how much.  Isn't it easier for the state not to take the money owed in the form of taxes from entrepreneurs? "

    “Meanwhile, the decline in insurance payments to 15% led to a serious“ whitewashing ”of the business, continued Titov.  - We studied the statistics of Sberbank, which serves a very significant part of Russian small and medium-sized businesses.  According to him, in the third quarter, after the lifting of restrictive measures, the SME sector not only increased revenue, but also increased the total wages fund by 11.3%.  Average salaries increased by 8.3%, in 78 constituent entities of the Russian Federation, contributions on insurance premiums and personal income tax increased.  It is obvious that for SMEs, taking into account all the risks and benefits, it has become more profitable to pay salary taxes than to pay remuneration for labor in cash, which confirms once again that the existing tax burden - both before the pandemic and during the pandemic - is excessive.  It doesn't let the business run smoothly.  The myth is that there are not many small businesses in Russia.  He simply cannot be seen.  His "whitewashing" should become the main goal, and not only a stick, but also a carrot. "

    “In the Moscow Region, an extensive set of federal and regional measures to support business was prepared and implemented: tax holidays, deferred payments, concessional financing and compensation, and much more.  During the spring pandemic, the total amount of funds in business support funds in the Moscow region amounted to 3.4 billion rubles.  A significant part of the implemented business support measures extended to enterprises operating in the most affected sectors of the economy, primarily to SMEs.  So, one of the first measures established - the postponement of the payment of taxes and insurance premiums (based on the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated 02.04.2020 No. 409) - affected more than 1.6 million organizations and individual entrepreneurs belonging to the category of SMEs operating in the affected  industries ", - said the Commissioner for the Protection of the Rights of Entrepreneurs in the Moscow Region Vladimir Golovnev.

    In difficult conditions, the Moscow region business had to quickly adapt to new conditions and change the usual format of their work.  Many catering, service and retail businesses have gone online.  To support local entrepreneurs in the territories of a number of municipalities of the Moscow Region, the authorities, together with business associations and heads of public reception offices of the Commissioner, created web platforms - free aggregators of local producers of goods and services.

Such sites, for example, were created in the urban districts of Volokolamsk

and Krasnogorsk.

    “Moreover, it should be noted that the projects launched in the Moscow region during the pandemic did not cease to exist after the restrictions were lifted, but found a logical continuation.  In the Moscow region, mobile applications are being developed that allow you to familiarize yourself with and use an expanded set of support measures for business.  Such local examples should be taken into account, they can be useful.  During today's forum, we managed to share the experience of the Moscow region with our colleagues from other regions, ”concluded Vladimir Golovnev.

    A meeting with representatives of the Federal Tax Service is scheduled for December 16.  The section will discuss technical issues of transition from UTII to other tax regimes, issues of registration and verification of a legal address, as well as innovations in tax legislation.  At the end of the day, a meeting with the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia Denis Manturov will take place to discuss issues related to the problems of introducing mandatory labeling of goods.

    The event is broadcast via the link: https: //ombudsmanbiz.ru/xiv-vserossijskaja-konferencija-upolnomochennyh-po-zashhite-prav-predprinimatelej/#1