SPLIT OF BUSINESS AS ONE OF THE WAYS OF OBTAINING UNJUSTIFIED TAX BENEFIT BY TAXPAYERS

The paper deals with the consideration of one of the main ways of obtaining an unjustified tax benefit by taxpayers – the split of business. The issue under consideration is not fully developed in the current tax legislation. To develop the concept of “split of business”, the author gives the assessment to the law-enforcement and law expository precedents taking into account the new legislative approaches in tax practice.      

The research paper analyzes the methodological recommendations of the Investigation Committee of the Russian Federation and Federal Tax Service of the Russian Federation, which is aimed at the study and the proof of facts of intended nonpayment or underpayment of sums of taxes and charges. The author considers the main directions of identification by the taxation authorities of obtaining tax payment savings by taxpayers with the help of the creation of the “artificial” situation – split of business.      

Special attention is paid to the review of legal practice on the proof of facts of obtaining an unjustified tax benefit by taxpayers.

The author systematizes and considers the plan of actions of legal entities which allow the controlling authorities representatives to build an evidence base indicating that the dividing of an organization into several other legal entities is just an artificially developed scheme – “split of business”.     

The results of the study can be used in the theoretical research covering the analysis of content and essence of the rights and responsibilities of taxpayers and for the development of tax policy of legal entities and individual entrepreneurs.

The work carried out allows identifying the main problems in the sphere of application of schemes with the business processes separation by taxpayers and suggesting the variants of their solution.