Filling out the VAT return form for the 2nd quarter of 2021

Which form to use

The current VAT declaration form for the 2nd quarter of 2021 is fixed by order of the Federal Tax Service of Russia dated October 29, 2014 No. ММВ-7-3/558:

Please note that the VAT return form for the 2nd quarter of 2017 must be in the latest edition - as amended on March 12, 2021. They were approved by order of the Federal Tax Service of Russia dated December 20, 2016 No. ММВ-7-3/696.

You can download the VAT return for the 2nd quarter of 2017 from our website using the following link.

Also see “New VAT return form from 2021: what has changed in it.”

It must be said that the VAT declaration for the 2nd quarter of 2021 did not receive any changes. That is, the report form is similar to the first quarter of 2021. At the same time, a number of changes came into effect on July 1, which will not yet have a significant impact on the completion of the report in question. Among them:

• expansion of the application procedure for VAT refund;
• rules for VAT recovery when receiving subsidies;
• benefits for the sale of medical products;
• new details and invoice format and more.

For more information, see “VAT from 1 July 2021: overview of changes”.

Delivery methods

Tax agents send the new form to regulatory authorities in one of two ways:

1. On paper.
2. Electronic.

The paper option is allowed to be submitted to employers with fewer than 25 employees. Organizations with a staff of more than 25 people must submit an electronic version of 6-NDFL for the second quarter, the deadline for which is established taking into account the legal requirements, which we will discuss below.

Deadlines

Based on paragraph 5 of Article 174 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, the deadlines for the VAT declaration for the 2nd quarter of 2021 are as follows: no later than the 25th day of the month following the reporting quarter. That is, in our case, the deadline is July 25, 2021.

Also see “Deadline for filing VAT returns in 2021”.

Deadlines for tax agents

Sometimes companies and entrepreneurs are required to pay VAT not for themselves, but for their counterparty. In such cases, they are recognized as tax agents. For example, a company becomes a VAT agent when renting or purchasing property from government authorities, when working under a partnership/trust agreement for property management and some others. Agency VAT must be paid regardless of whether the agent himself is a payer of this tax or not.

Until when do agents have to pay VAT? In most cases, they are subject to the rules and deadlines listed above. That is, payment is made in three equal amounts, before the 25th day of each month of the quarter following the reporting one. Therefore, the deadlines for paying VAT in 2021, given in the table above, will be relevant for many tax agents.

But there is one exception - when a Russian person acts as a customer of work or services from a foreign organization on the territory of the Russian Federation. In this case, payment of VAT must be made simultaneously with the transfer of funds to a foreign counterparty for work or services.

The rule applies when 2 conditions are met:

• the foreign company is not registered with the Russian tax authorities;
• works (services) were implemented in Russia.

In practice, during such operations, two payments are submitted to the bank: for payment of services to the counterparty and for transfer of the VAT amount to the budget. This should be done both when transferring the full payment and when transferring the advance payment. If you do not provide a document for VAT transfer, the bank will simply not accept the payment order and will not transfer the money to the foreign company.

Zero report

The accountant should have no doubt whether to submit a zero VAT return for the 2nd quarter of 2021 or not. The fact is that this is precisely a duty, not a right of the organization.

It occurs when two conditions are present:

1. The company operates on a common tax system.
2. There was no activity in Q2 2021.

Thus, you will still have to submit a zero VAT report. Although there is no need to send the form with all the sheets to the Federal Tax Service. It is enough to pass 2 of its components:

1. Title page.
2. First section.

This is required by the rules for filling out value added tax reports. From a practical point of view, this is easy to explain: tax authorities do not need unnecessary electronic trash in the form of redundant files - sheets of zero VAT declaration with only dashes.

By the way, filling out a zero VAT return follows the same rules as reporting with performance indicators.

Payment of VAT by certain categories of payers

The above rules are not applicable to all value added tax payers:

• Persons engaged in economic activities and applying special tax regimes and who are obligated to pay VAT must pay immediately only in certain cases, without spreading the payment over three months.
• Tax agents who work with foreign legal entities, as well as those purchasing goods and services from them, must pay VAT when transferring funds to the supplier. The bank, along with information for payment for the goods, must receive information and a payment order for the amount of VAT regarding the amount of payment.

If a business entity does not pay VAT on time or does not submit a return on time, this may entail penalties. The minimum possible amount of such a fine is 1,000 rubles, and the maximum is up to 30% of the amount of tax that was calculated according to the declaration.

So, if the declaration was submitted untimely, but the VAT itself was credited on time, then the organization or individual entrepreneur may face a fine of 1,000 rubles. If a partial payment of tax was made, the amount of the fine will be calculated based on 5% of the difference between the amount of tax paid and accrued.

Finally, we note that VAT taxpayers must submit tax returns in any case, even if there were no business transactions during the tax period.

Filling

The procedure and rules for filling out the VAT return for the 2nd quarter of 2017 are regulated by the Federal Tax Service order No. ММВ-7-3/558 dated October 29, 2014, which approved the very form of this reporting form.

The senior tax authorities emphasized one nuance of filling out the declaration in a letter dated March 20, 2021 No. SD-4-3/4921. Namely: what code to put in Section 7 in relation to arbitration services, which are not subject to VAT from 2021.

Also see “Section 7 of the VAT return”.

Once the introductory part has been completed, it’s time to move on to Section 1

And this is where the first questions begin to arise. In particular, what should be indicated in lines 010-050? Everything is very simple, we answer: here the income tax rate, tax deductions, the amount of calculated tax, the amount of income in the form of dividends, etc. are indicated.

An important point: if your company paid employees different types of income, subject to different tax rates, then they must be reflected in these lines for the current tax period. Next, pay attention to lines from 060 to 090.

They indicate the total number of employees whose income is subject to tax deductions: the amount of tax withheld, the amount withheld or not withheld by the tax agent, etc. As a guide for filling out this form, we suggest that you familiarize yourself in detail with Order of the Federal Tax Service of the Russian Federation No. ММВ-7-11/450, as well as Order No. ММВ-7-11/387. They contain information on tax deductions quite well.

When is the report considered submitted?

The report can be submitted to inspectors in several ways:

• upon a personal visit by an authorized person;
• by mail with notification of receipt and an inventory of the contents;
• via telecommunication channels.

Therefore, if the report is submitted during a personal visit, then 6-NDFL for 2 quarters. the deadline for submission is considered the day it is submitted to the tax authorities. The inspector puts an acceptance mark on the second copy of the form. If the form is sent by mail, the date of submission is the date indicated on the mailing receipt. If it is sent via TKS, then confirmation of receipt is sent by email; accordingly, the date of receipt of the confirmation is considered the date of submission of the report.

How to fine for late 6-NDFL

If you miss the deadline for submitting the 6-NDFL report for the first half of 2020, you will be fined.

The amount of the fine is 1000 rubles for each full and partial month from the deadline for submitting the calculation (clause 1.2 of Article 126 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation).

In addition, already on the 10th day of failure to submit the form, the tax office has the right to block your account and suspend any transactions on it (clause 1.2 of Article 126, clause 3.2 of Article 76 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation).

You may also be fined for submitting documents containing false information in the amount of 500 rubles for each such document submitted (Article 126.1 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation).

What to do with paid vacation pay

With regard to income in the form of wages, the date of actual receipt of income is the last day of the month for which the employee was accrued income (clause 2 of Article 223 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation). However, for vacation pay, this date is defined as the day of payment of income (letter of the Ministry of Finance of Russia dated January 26, 2015 No. 03-04-06/2187). The date of withholding personal income tax will coincide with the date of payment of income, because the tax agent is obliged to withhold tax from the income of an individual upon their actual payment (clause 4 of article 226 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation).

The deadline for transferring personal income tax from vacation pay, i.e., the deadline when the tax agent must transfer the tax withheld from an individual, is the last day of the month in which the employee’s vacation pay was issued. Below we give an example of including vacation payments in 6-NDFL. Information about holidays is given in the table. For convenience, we will agree that there were no other payments.

If the employee goes on annual paid leave in July 2017 (in the third quarter). According to the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, the employer is obliged to pay vacation pay in advance - no later than 3 working days before the start of the vacation (Article 136 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation). It is therefore possible that holiday pay was paid in June 2021 (in the second quarter). The company had to calculate and withhold personal income tax from vacation pay on the day of payment, and transfer the withheld amount to the budget no later than June 30. That is, no difficulties should arise with such vacation pay, since operations do not carry over to the third quarter. They are reflected in exactly the same way as in the example above.

Non-production bonus

Non-production bonuses are incentive payments, not rewards for work performed. Therefore, they cannot be equated to wages.

When calculating 6-NDFL, reflect the non-production bonus on the date of payment. On this day, you must simultaneously recognize income and withhold personal income tax (subclause 1, clause 1, article 223, clause 3, article 226 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation). The monthly non-production bonus in section 2 is distributed as follows:

• on line 100 – date of payment of the premium
• on line 110 - the same date as on line 100
• on line 120 - the first working day after the one indicated on line 110
• on line 130 – bonus amount
• on line 140 – personal income tax amount

An example of reflecting a non-production bonus

On June 8, 2021, the employee received a monthly bonus in the amount of 35,000 rubles for May. Personal income tax on this amount is 4,550 rubles. In section 2 of the semi-annual calculation, the bonus will be reflected as follows:

Safe share of VAT deductions in Russian regions (in%, for the 2nd quarter of 2021)

Results

The share of VAT deductions is a tool with which tax authorities determine which taxpayer to check first.