How to close an individual entrepreneur and avoid debts

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

To complete your business and not get into trouble, follow this algorithm.

1. Collect debts

If customers have not completely settled with you, you should worry about this in advance. When you close the individual entrepreneur and the current account with which you worked as an entrepreneur, it will not be easy to get old debts. You will have to come up with alternative ways of transferring money, for example, to your personal card. But if the tax department finds out about this, it may consider what is happening as illegal business. So collect work debts while you have an individual entrepreneur status.

2. Pay off with contractors and contractors

Closing an individual entrepreneur does not relieve a businessman of debt obligations. They can still be reclaimed from him, however, already as from an individual. If creditors bring the case to court and win it, then the bailiffs will describe personal property and freeze accounts. The prospect is bleak, so debts have to be paid.

And it is better to do this before closing the individual entrepreneur and the current account, so that you do not have to come up with ingenious money transfer schemes.

3. Fire workers

Of course, this step is only necessary if the entrepreneur has employees. You will have to do the following:

• Notify the employment service of the decision to close the individual entrepreneur and the upcoming layoffs. Transfer to the department the data of employees who will lose their jobs.
• Notify employees of the dismissal in writing, signed two weeks before day X, unless otherwise provided by the employment contract.
• Prepare an order to terminate an employment contract with an employee in connection with the closure of an individual entrepreneur. Record data about the document in the register of orders for personnel. To acquaint the employee with the document - under the signature.
• Draw up a note-calculation, in accordance with which all financial issues will be resolved with the employee.
• Enter entries on the termination of the employment contract in the work book and the employee's personal file.
• Settle with him. Issue him a work book, a 2 ‑ personal income tax certificate for the last year and a document on income for the last 2 years.

Subsequently, it will remain to pay insurance premiums for employees - they must be transferred within 15 days. More details can be found in a separate article by Lifehacker. Then you need to submit reports:

• to the tax office - 6 ‑ personal income tax and the calculation of insurance premiums;
• to the Social Insurance Fund - calculation of accrued and paid insurance contributions in the form of 4-FSS;
• to the Pension Fund - information about the insured persons in the SZV-M and SZV-STAZh forms.

4. Deregister the online cashier

You need to submit to the tax office:

• application for the removal of cash register equipment from registration with an indication of the reason;
• report on the closure of the fiscal accumulator.

This can be done through the tax website or in person. Keep in mind: to submit documents remotely, you need an electronic signature. If the old one has expired, you will have to pay to get a new one, so it will be cheaper to go to the inspection yourself.

The tax office has 10 days to deregister the cash register.

5. Pay the state fee for closing the IP

You will have to pay 160 rubles for the procedure. You can generate a payment on the FTS website, deposit money through the website or through a bank. The payment receipt will come in handy in the next step.

6. Submit documents for closure to the tax office

You need to contact the FTS inspectorate where you registered the individual entrepreneur and transfer:

• an application for state registration of the termination of an individual's activity as an individual entrepreneur;
• receipt of payment of state duty;
• optionally - a document confirming the submission of information about an individual personal account and insurance premiums to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation (the tax authority can request data on its own).

It can be done:

• in person at the tax office or through a multifunctional center;
• through an intermediary with a notarized power of attorney at the tax office or through the MFC;
• through "Gosuslugi";
• through the FTS website;
• by mail (in a valuable letter with a list of attachments and a signature on the application certified by a notary).

7. Take the documents from the tax office

On the sixth working day after submitting the documents, you will be able to pick up a sheet of record of the USRIP (Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs) on registration of the termination of entrepreneurial activity. When submitting through the MFC, the process will take 11 days: the time for transporting documents to the tax office and back is added to the deadline.

If you are denied the closure of the IP, you will receive a document with the reason for this. There may be mistakes in the papers. We'll have to redo everything and contact the inspection again.

8. Close the current account

Contact your bank. There you will be guided how to apply for closing a current account. If there is money left on it, they will give it to you - it is not necessary to clear all funds in advance.

9. Pay insurance premiums

We are talking about contributions to pension and compulsory health insurance for yourself. You have 15 days from the date of registration of the IP closure to pay off your debts. Contributions are calculated based on the months and days actually worked.

10. Submit your tax return and pay taxes

Much depends on the chosen taxation system.

• If you're on a patent, you don't have to do anything. But you can recalculate its cost in proportion to the time worked and ask to return the overpaid.
• If on a simplified taxation system, you need to pay taxes and submit a declaration by the 25th day of the month following the date of the IP closure.
• If you pay a single tax on imputed income, the declaration must be submitted no later than the 20th day of the next month, and taxes must be paid no later than the 25th day.
• If you are on the general taxation system, the 3 ‑ NDFL declaration is submitted within five days from the date of closing the individual entrepreneur, the VAT return - no later than the 25th day of the month following the quarter in which you closed the individual entrepreneur. Taxes must be paid within 15 days after the entry is made in the USRIP.

11. Collect all documents and put them in a safe place

The tax office can check you, even if the sole proprietor does not already exist. In this case, you should have with you all the papers on past activities: an extract on the closure of an individual entrepreneur, contracts, accounts, acts. All this must be stored for four years. Do not dispose of your insurance premium documents for another six years.