Next year, wealthy investors will pay personal income tax for the first time from accrued interest on deposits. From 2022, citizens with bank deposits of 1 million rubles or more will come under the scrutiny of tax authorities. Initially, this initiative was presented by the authorities as a “tax on the rich.” But the tax authorities may also be targeted by citizens who put aside the money they earned for a decent old age. Experts said how many Russians will be affected by the new tax and how to legally avoid it.
According to the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) for 2021, Russian banks have about 5.1 million individual accounts worth over 1 million rubles, which is 1% of the total number of accounts. The total amount of funds in these accounts is 17.95 trillion rubles, or 57% of the total funds in all accounts.
“The tax is not levied on deposits, but only on interest,” emphasizes Danila Mikhalishchev, a credit lawyer and head of the anti-collection agency OFIR. “However, the law does not mention any specific amounts – it all depends on the rate, the term of the deposit and the peculiarities of interest payments.” Accounts with a yield of less than 1%, for example, salary, and escrow accounts, which are now used for real estate transactions, will not be taken into account.
The Ministry of Finance with the help of a new tax plans to improve the state of the treasury, and in the draft budget for 2022-2024 it has planned that personal income tax receipts on income from bank deposits in 2022 will amount to 108.3 billion rubles, in 2023 – 111.5 billion rubles , in 2024 – 114.9 billion rubles.
Whether it is fair to call this initiative a “tax on the rich” is an open question, because among older citizens there are many who are inclined to saving behavior and have saved for many years, or even decades, money for a decent old age, for a “rainy day” or as personal insurance. from the crisis.
For pensioners, interest on deposits is almost the only tool available and understandable for them to invest and save money from inflation. And now it turns out that tax will have to be paid on this money as well.
“Indeed, starting next year, pensioners with over 1 million rubles in bank deposits will have to pay income tax,” says Mikhail Uspensky, deputy chairman of the board of the Chamber of Tax Consultants. “There are no exceptions to these rules.”
The new levy is personal income tax at a rate of 13%, which will be taxed on the amount of interest on one or more deposits in an amount exceeding 1 million rubles less interest in the amount of the key rate of the Bank of Russia at the beginning of the tax period.
In other words, in 2022 the rate will be taken into account, which was at the beginning of 2021 – 4.25% per annum. Thus, the tax will have to be paid on interest income exceeding 42.5 thousand rubles.
At the same time, the personal income tax rate can be increased to 15% if the total annual income (salary, bonuses, bonuses, interest on deposits) exceeds 5 million rubles. The deadline for payment, according to the law, is established, as for all property taxes, until December 1. How it works?
Let’s imagine that you put a million at 5% and earned 50 thousand rubles in a year on interest. Let us subtract from this amount the non-taxable part – 42.5 thousand (a million multiplied by the key rate). It turns out 7.5 thousand rubles. From this income, you will need to pay 13% of the tax, that is, 975 rubles.
However, even these payments can be avoided if desired. “When placing a large amount with a monthly interest payment or capitalization of interest, you can avoid paying tax or reduce it if the income on the deposit is spread between two or three tax periods – calendar years,” advises Danila Mikhalishchev. Unprofitable, it turns out, are large deposits with interest payments at the end of the term.
Another way to avoid tax on deposits is to open them in the name of relatives, but only if you are completely confident in these relatives, the lawyer emphasizes.
To estimate the amount of tax in your case, you need a simple calculator and a calculation form before your eyes, and if it is difficult, then on various Internet resources there are already special calculators for calculating the tax and you can use them.
“The FTS calculates the tax on its own based on data from banks,” explains Sergei Grigoryan, head of the ANIF representative office in Russia.
But if someone does not agree with the amount of tax received, he can apply to the tax office in a complaint procedure or immediately go to court, the expert notes.
