Detailed instructions for closing an individual entrepreneur online through the tax website 2021

Today, a fairly common occurrence is the event when an individual entrepreneur decides to stop running his business. The concept of deregistration implies the loss of individual entrepreneur status. In Russian legislation, the procedure for closing this form of entrepreneurship is spelled out quite carefully. But, despite this, deregistration of individual entrepreneurs with the tax office often raises many questions among businessmen. We will consider below how to carry out this procedure without outside help.

How to close an individual entrepreneur in 2021: step-by-step instructions

Before its closure, according to the law, an individual entrepreneur must fulfill only the first two points; he can fulfill the rest after cessation of activity. But in practice, tax authorities often require that all the actions described below be performed at once.

In this case, the individual entrepreneur must by law:

• notify your employees in writing of the upcoming dismissal at least two months before closure;
• two weeks before closing, notify the Employment Service in writing;
• make full payments to employees;
• pay all necessary taxes and payments for employees;
• submit all required reporting for employees;
• after dismissal of all personnel, deregister with the Social Insurance Fund.

The exact amount of insurance premiums can be calculated if you know the closing date of the individual entrepreneur (to calculate, you can use this free online service on this website). Therefore, it is more convenient to pay for them after the termination of business activity (but no later than 15 calendar days from the date of making an entry in the Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs). However, in practice, sometimes tax authorities illegally require payment before closing. In this case, the individual entrepreneur has four options:

• try to explain that these demands are unlawful and (or) demand a written request for payment of contributions and justification for the refusal to close the individual entrepreneur on this basis;
• send documents to close an individual entrepreneur by mail (in this case, the likelihood of refusal for this reason is minimal);
• still pay insurance premiums before closing the individual entrepreneur;
• file a complaint about unlawful actions (inaction) of tax authority officials to a higher authority (FTS).

Since 2011, the Federal Tax Service must independently request a certificate from the Pension Fund. However, if you still need a certificate for the debt, then you need to go with the documents to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation and write an application to close the individual entrepreneur, then if, when calculating on the expected closing date, you get a debt, you should be given receipts, after which you can receive it.

The exact deadline for submitting a tax return when closing an individual entrepreneur is not specified in the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, and therefore different Federal Tax Service Inspectors can interpret it in their own way: before closure, within 5 days after closure, or generally within the usual time frame. Therefore, an individual entrepreneur needs to clarify this issue with the Federal Tax Service at the place of registration.

Read about how to fill out a UTII liquidation declaration when closing an individual entrepreneur here.

Why close

An entrepreneur who is not operating may want to keep the business. Like, the status is already ready, there is no paperwork with closing and possible reopening, you won’t have to spend money on duties and fill out numerous documents.

Unfortunately, you will have to spend money and fill out paperwork. Lack of income from a non-operating business does not exempt from paying mandatory tax contributions:

• to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation - 29,354 rubles (and if the entrepreneur’s annual income is more than 300 thousand, 1% of the difference is added to the contribution);
• in FFMOS - 6884 rubles.

Over the course of a year, you will have to allocate at least 36,238 rubles for these payments alone. A businessman whose taxes depend on income (STS and OSNO) does not need to pay anything when filing a zero return. For UTII, the tax amount does not depend on profit, so even those who have not worked at all will have to pay.

Another issue is documentation. As long as the individual entrepreneur exists, its owner is obliged to submit reports for the tax period to the Federal Tax Service. If there was no work at the specified time, zero declarations are submitted (STS and OSNO). For failure to provide documentation within the specified period, the entrepreneur faces a fine. Late payment of taxes is fraught with fines and penalties.

At the same time, liquidation of an individual entrepreneur is a simple process. The entrepreneur pays the state fee (for “offline” submission, there is no need to pay for providing electronic documentation). Then he fills out an application for closure and submits a liquidation declaration. This takes a little time, but at the same time significantly saves money and nerves for the individual entrepreneur, who may one day find out about a huge debt to the Federal Tax Service.

How to close an individual entrepreneur yourself in 2021: detailed step-by-step instructions

Russian Post is working now, but it is difficult to predict when your letter will arrive. Nevertheless, the method works, although it requires additional costs and contacting a notary.

To do this, you need to notarize the application P26001 and a copy of your passport, pay the state fee and enclose all documents in a letter with an inventory. On average, this option will cost 1,500 rubles. And taking into account the long passage of correspondence, this method can be considered the most inconvenient.

The service itself does not allow individuals to close their business, that is, there is no functionality (opportunities) to fill out an application and send it online.

So, after logging in to the portal, you will see what are the possible ways to submit an application for liquidation of an individual entrepreneur.

You must collect the following package of documents, which includes:

• application in form No. P26001 on state registration of closure of business activity by an individual;
• in 2021, there is no need to pay the state fee if the citizen submits the papers in electronic form using an electronic signature. Therefore, no fee receipt is required;
• a document that confirms the provision of the necessary information to the Pension Fund. If it is not available, tax officials will independently receive this document by sending the information to the Pension Fund authority.

Application P26001 for closing an individual entrepreneur, as well as other papers for liquidating a business, can be transferred remotely:

• by mail (it is necessary to send documentation with the declared value, as well as an inventory of the enclosed papers);
• in electronic form.

After the tax office receives the documents, a receipt will be sent to the applicant confirming their receipt.

As soon as the tax authority registers the termination of activity, this information will become publicly available, and anyone can find out the status of an individual entrepreneur. This opportunity is provided by the Federal Tax Service website, where you can check whether the individual entrepreneur is working by entering one of the types of data into the search engine:

• TIN;
• OGRN;
• Full name of the entrepreneur;
• the region in which he lives.

The legislative framework

The process of liquidation of individual entrepreneurs is determined by special federal legislation - the Federal Law:

The liquidation process should be carried out within the framework of this standard:

Find out how deliberate bankruptcy is recognized in the article: deliberate bankruptcy. If you are interested in how the bankruptcy of an LLC with debts goes, read here.

If you want to know what the stages of the bankruptcy procedure are, look here.

The deregistration procedure involves many different nuances and features. Preliminary consideration of these will avoid many different problems.

Liquidation of individual entrepreneurs remotely, online in 2021

By providing entrepreneurs with the opportunity to close an individual entrepreneur online, the tax office:

1. Simplifies and speeds up the process of winding down activities. You can do without traveling and waiting in line. By following the instructions on the Federal Tax Service website and showing care and patience, achieving your goal will not be difficult.
2. Allows you to save money because the businessman does not use intermediaries.
3. Makes the business closing cycle accessible. Having an electronic digital signature, you can send an application to the Federal Tax Service from your office or home from a computer with access to the Internet and expect to receive a supporting document.

Although this method of termination is not ideal:

• if the flow of applications to the tax office is large, then receiving a response may take a long time;
• despite the convenience of digital signature, not every entrepreneur has his own digital signature;
• If you make a mistake when filling out an application or when signing the attached documents, the businessman runs the risk of being refused.

In comparison with the advantages of this method of closing a business, the listed disadvantages can be called features of this procedure that should be taken into account.

There are two ways to close an IP:

1. Independent closure of an individual entrepreneur. A fairly simple procedure, which consists of preparing a number of documents and performing some preparatory procedures (paying taxes, fees, dismissing employees, etc.). In addition, by going through all the steps of closing an individual entrepreneur on your own, you will gain invaluable experience that may be useful to you more than once.
2. Paid closure of individual entrepreneurs through a specialized company. Suitable for those who want to save their time and do not want to delve into the process of closing an individual entrepreneur on their own.

Close the IP yourself

Close an individual entrepreneur for a fee through a specialized company

The cost of paid closure of an individual entrepreneur depends on the region, but usually ranges from 1,000 to 5,000 rubles. The state fee for closing an individual entrepreneur, as a rule, is not included in this amount.

Note

: the cost does not take into account the costs of taxes and fees, contributions, fines that may need to be paid, as well as the costs of settlements with employees (if any).

At this stage, you need to know exactly what amounts of taxes, fines and penalties you need to pay. Directly, the amount of taxes payable depends on the tax system on which the individual entrepreneur is located. You can obtain accurate information about existing debts and overpayments of taxes, fees and fines by reconciling settlements with the tax authority.

You can read more about individual entrepreneur taxes on this page.

In this case, the individual entrepreneur must by law:

• notify your employees in writing of the upcoming dismissal at least two months before closure;
• two weeks before closing, notify the Employment Service in writing;
• make full payments to employees;
• pay all necessary taxes and payments for employees;
• submit all required reporting for employees;
• after dismissal of all personnel, deregister with the Social Insurance Fund.

When and how to close

The process of closing an individual entrepreneur if no activity was carried out on it is similar to getting rid of an operating business. You can submit an application for liquidation at any time, even immediately after receiving the status of an entrepreneur.

An individual entrepreneur may not complete the tax period. If he winds down his activities before the end of the quarter or year (the length of the period depends on the taxation regime), a partially zero declaration is submitted to the Federal Tax Service, where the entrepreneur provides data only for the time worked. Taxes and contributions to the Social Insurance Fund are recalculated in proportion to the period of activity.

To liquidate the individual entrepreneur, he submits to the Federal Tax Service a corresponding application and a receipt for payment of the duty.

Close an individual entrepreneur via the Internet on the tax website

The exact amount of insurance premiums can be calculated if you know the closing date of the individual entrepreneur (to calculate, you can use this free online service on this website). Therefore, it is more convenient to pay for them after the termination of business activity (but no later than 15 calendar days from the date of making an entry in the Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs). However, in practice, sometimes tax authorities illegally require payment before closing. In this case, the individual entrepreneur has four options:

• try to explain that these demands are unlawful and (or) demand a written request for payment of contributions and justification for the refusal to close the individual entrepreneur on this basis;
• send documents to close an individual entrepreneur by mail (in this case, the likelihood of refusal for this reason is minimal);
• still pay insurance premiums before closing the individual entrepreneur;
• file a complaint about unlawful actions (inaction) of tax authority officials to a higher authority (FTS).

Since 2011, the Federal Tax Service must independently request a certificate from the Pension Fund. However, if you still need a certificate for the debt, then you need to go with the documents to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation and write an application to close the individual entrepreneur, then if, when calculating on the expected closing date, you get a debt, you should be given receipts, after which you can receive it.

Only individual entrepreneurs who have employees are required to register with the Social Insurance Fund. However, some individual entrepreneurs independently register with the Social Insurance Fund (for example, those who are often sick, going on maternity leave, etc.).

From June 11, 2021, there is no need to notify the Social Insurance Fund of termination of activities. Individual entrepreneurs will be deregistered with the Social Insurance Fund based on data sent to the tax office. At the same time, if an individual entrepreneur has debts to the Social Insurance Fund, this will not affect the withdrawal procedure in any way.

After receiving your last non-cash payments and paying all necessary taxes and insurance premiums, you should close your bank account. The balance can be withdrawn or transferred to any bank to another account, which can be specified when filling out the application.

From May 2, 2014, the obligation to notify about the closure (opening) of a current account in a bank has been abolished. Before May 2, the individual entrepreneur had to independently notify within 7 days: the tax service, the Pension Fund of Russia, the Social Insurance Fund (for individual entrepreneurs registered with it).

You can submit an application to deregister an entrepreneur through two official resources - the Federal Tax Service website and the government services portal. But you shouldn’t believe the advertising offers of law firms; you will simply spend extra money, but will not speed up the procedure.

In addition, you can submit an application to close an individual entrepreneur remotely through a notary who provides such services, but you will have to pay at least 1,000 rubles for this. There is no particular need for this. If you want to close an individual entrepreneur online through the tax office during the period of self-isolation, then this can be done even if you do not have your electronic signature.

If you did everything correctly, then on the sixth working day after sending the application, check the email address specified in form P26001. The tax office must send a sheet of registration from the Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs, where it will be indicated that you have ceased business activities. If you have any questions, please contact the Federal Tax Service hotline or the registration inspectorate where you submitted your documents.

We are waiting for a response from the Federal Tax Service

Upon receipt of documents, the entrepreneur is given a receipt. It indicates the date and time of submission of documentation, full name, who accepted.

The application is considered within 5 working days. At this time, specialists review all activities of the organization.

At the end of 5 days, you can come to the office of the Federal Tax Service with an identification document and a receipt for the decision.

If, when filling out the application in paragraph 2, you selected a response by mail, then all submitted documents will be sent in a letter to the specified address.

If the enterprise refuses to close, the tax office notifies the individual entrepreneur of the reasons.

Reasons for refusal:

• errors in the application;
• incorrectly executed power of attorney;
• the wrong branch of the tax authority was selected;
• errors when paying state fees.

Previously, it was impossible to close an individual entrepreneur if there were unpaid pension contributions. But due to recent amendments to the law, this clause has been eliminated.

A repeated application is submitted immediately after the shortcomings are eliminated.

How to close an individual entrepreneur in 2020 - 2021

The main change is that starting from September 1, 2020, the Federal Tax Service will be able to forcibly close an individual entrepreneur if the individual entrepreneur simultaneously falls under two conditions:

1. fifteen months have expired from the date of expiration of the patent or the individual entrepreneur has not submitted reporting documents, information on calculations provided for by the legislation of the Russian Federation on taxes and fees during the last fifteen months;

2. an individual entrepreneur has arrears and debt in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation on taxes and fees.

But I don’t advise you to let the situation reach such an outcome, since then you won’t be able to become an individual entrepreneur if you try to re-register for three years. Well, debts on contributions and taxes and reporting will not go away, of course. Therefore, it is better to go through the procedure of “closing” an individual entrepreneur in the usual manner.

So far, only one change is expected, related to form P26001 (there is an example below).

The Federal Tax Service has already prepared an order on a new application form for closing an individual entrepreneur. And, most likely, the new application form will come into effect in 2021.

Once this change occurs, I will update the example of how to fill it out.

The application for closing the individual entrepreneur has already been updated. The new application form is valid from November 25, 2021. An example of filling is below.

In fact, there can be a huge number of reasons. I will list only the most important of them:

1. Opening an LLC instead of an individual entrepreneur;
2. No income or profit;
3. Changed my mind about being an individual entrepreneur;
4. In a word, there can be a lot of reasons. And not all of them are included in this list.

But it doesn’t matter what the reason may be - the main thing is to close the individual entrepreneur CORRECTLY and not get fined by the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, the Federal Tax Service, the Federal Compulsory Medical Insurance Fund and the Social Insurance Fund, etc.

For example, entrepreneurs often close their individual entrepreneurs and think that this will write off all fines and debts on taxes and contributions to the Pension Fund of Russia and the Federal Compulsory Medical Insurance Fund, the Social Insurance Fund....

Of course, this is far from true! But we’ll talk about this a little later, but for now let’s start with the first step of our short instructions.

On the sixth working day, you will receive an official document confirming the completion of the individual entrepreneur closure procedure.

You will be given a record sheet from the Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs. If you filled out the documents incorrectly, you will receive a notice with the reasons for the refusal to close the individual entrepreneur. As a rule, I repeat, we are talking about errors in filling out documents.

A controversial issue on which there is still no consensus. They say that now information about closed individual entrepreneurs is transmitted through interdepartmental channels and, they say, now there is no need to independently deregister after the closure of an individual entrepreneur...

But I strongly recommend contacting the Pension Fund and the Federal Compulsory Medical Insurance Fund in order to resolve this issue. Especially if you are registered as an employer. This must be done in order to reconcile debts to these funds and submit ALL closing reports for yourself and your employees (if there were any).

And once again I would like to draw your attention to the fact that if you hired employees, you will have to be deregistered as an employer in the Social Insurance Fund and the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation and the Federal Compulsory Compulsory Medical Insurance Fund.

To close an individual entrepreneur, you will need the following documents:

1. Application for registration of termination of activities as an individual entrepreneur, drawn up in form P26001. We will tell you how to fill it out below.
2. A document confirming payment of the state duty (it only needs to be paid if you submit documents directly to the tax office on paper).
3. A certificate from the Pension Fund stating that you have provided them with information about the insured persons (needed only if you have employees). You don’t have to submit the certificate - in this case, the tax authorities will make a request to the Pension Fund on their own.

The application form for liquidation of individual entrepreneur R26001 is unified - it is fixed by order of the Federal Tax Service of Russia dated August 31, 2020 No. ED-7-14 / The new form is valid from November 25, 2020. It can be filled out on a computer or by hand - in black ink, legibly and without corrections. The application indicates the applicant's phone number and email address - the result of the application to the tax office will be sent to it. Section 3 of the form does not need to be filled out - tax officials will do this when they receive the document.

You can see and download the form and sample of such an application in our material.

The Federal Tax Service reviews documents within five working days from the date of receipt (clause 1 of article 8, clause 8 of article 22.23 of Federal Law No. 129). If a positive decision is made on the application, the tax office will send the applicant an extract from the Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs containing a record that the individual entrepreneur has been liquidated. In case of refusal, the tax office will send a corresponding notification - it will indicate the reason why the entrepreneur was not deregistered.

Confirmation of the fact of deregistration is issued in electronic form - an extract from the Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs is certified by an enhanced electronic signature of the tax office. A paper document is provided only if the applicant has submitted a request for its issuance in advance (Clause 3, Article 11 of Federal Law No. 129).

If you have submitted such a request, the procedure for issuing a paper statement depends on the method of contacting the tax office - the document can be obtained at the Federal Tax Service office, at the MFC or from a notary.

If the entrepreneur had employees, after the closure of the individual entrepreneur he will have to notify all the funds to which he made contributions.

Thus, information about employees who worked for the individual entrepreneur must be transferred to the Pension Fund within a month from the date of the decision to close (paragraph 5, paragraph 2, article 9 of the federal law “On Individual..." dated 04/01/1996 No. 27-FZ ). If this is not done, it will not be possible to close the individual entrepreneur through the tax office - the tax authorities will reject the application for liquidation (see, for example, the resolution of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Central District dated November 26, 2012 in case No. A14-745/2012).

After the dismissal of the last employee and registration of the fact of closure of the individual entrepreneur, an application for deregistration with the Social Insurance Fund is submitted to the tax office. Copies of the order(s) on termination of employment contracts with employees must be attached to it. Within 14 days from the date of receipt of the documents, the FSS will deregister the former entrepreneur (subclause 3, clause 3, article 6 of Federal Law No. 125).

Sample form p26001

Before you start filling out the form, you should study the sample form p26001.

Required fields, example of filling after downloading:

The contact telephone number and email address are indicated in a specially designated space.

No spaces or extra characters.

The landline phone number is indicated with the region code:

The third paragraph in the application is filled out by tax officials when accepting documents. The fourth paragraph is reserved for the notary in case the applicant decides to use the help of a trusted person.

Close an individual entrepreneur in 5 days without fines or sanctions

After you pay the state fee, you need to go to the registration authority where you registered as an individual entrepreneur, take a coupon for submitting documents to close an individual entrepreneur and submit two documents:

• application in form No. P26001;
• receipt of payment of the state duty to the inspector.

To confirm your identity, you only need a passport. After filing, you will receive a receipt indicating the day your closing documents were received. As a rule, this is 6 working days from the date of filing for liquidation of an individual entrepreneur.

If you live far from the tax office where your individual entrepreneur was registered or you do not have the opportunity to submit documents in person, then you can send the kit by mail, by registered mail with a declared value and a list of the contents. In this case, the day of filing for closure of the individual entrepreneur will be considered the day of receipt of this letter.

It is also possible to submit for closing using a notarized power of attorney; in this case, you need to have form P26001 certified by a notary and make a notarized power of attorney, or submit electronically using an electronic signature.

On the 6th working day, from the date of submission of documents to close the individual entrepreneur, you need to appear at the tax authority with a receipt to receive a record sheet from the Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs and a notice of deregistration with the tax authority of an individual as an individual entrepreneur.

If for any reason you were unable to appear on the specified day (according to the receipt), your documents will remain in the archives of the tax office; they will no longer be sent by mail to your registration address! Therefore, you can pick them up whenever it is convenient for you.

For those individual entrepreneurs who have a bank account and a cash register, it is necessary to close the bank account and deregister the cash register with the tax authority.

Closing a bank account: a fairly simple procedure; to carry it out, you need to pay off all debts to the tax authority and counterparties, withdraw the remaining balance of funds from the individual entrepreneur’s account (transfer to an individual’s personal card or withdraw from the bank’s cash desk), then submit documents for closing your individual entrepreneur to the branch of the bank serving you (copies and originals of the record sheet from the Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs and the Notice of withdrawal of you as an individual entrepreneur, an individual’s passport, the seal of your individual entrepreneur), fill out an application on the bank’s form and at the final stage receive a bank certificate confirming the closure of the current account .

It is necessary for those individual entrepreneurs who worked with the cash register to deregister the cash register at the territorial tax office. To deregister a cash register, you must contact the organization where you purchased the cash register, this can be a purchased or rented cash register from the bank servicing the current account or a third-party organization.

• Fire employees. If you want to close an individual entrepreneur without employees, skip this step
• Deregister a cash register
• Submit an application to the Federal Tax Service, pay the state fee
• Close a bank account
• Pay your dues
• Submit reports and pay taxes
• Save documents

As mentioned above, an application for liquidation of an individual entrepreneur is drawn up in form P26001. Fill it out electronically.

This form has only one page:

1. When filling out the application, you must provide information about the individual entrepreneur (1 point, subparagraphs 1.1-1.5):
   OGRNIP number;
2. Full name of the person who is registered as an individual entrepreneur;
3. TIN number.
4. In the second paragraph, the box indicates the method of obtaining confirmation of liquidation, and also indicates contact information - mobile phone number or email address.
5. Points 3 and 4 are omitted and left blank when submitting an application online. They are intended for an authorized person to personally contact the tax office.

The information provided in the application must be reliable. You must check all details carefully before submitting the form, otherwise your application will be rejected.

What kind of reporting should an individual entrepreneur submit if there is no activity?

Tax returns are available in all taxation systems, except PSN and NPD. The deadlines and frequency for submitting reports are given in our tax calendar.

Please note that VAT returns are submitted only electronically, certified with an electronic signature. In this case, the solution for the OSNO payer may be to submit a single simplified declaration, which is accepted in paper form.

Reporting on insurance premiums is established only for employees. If the individual entrepreneur did not hire anyone and paid contributions only for himself, he does not need to report on this basis.

How to terminate a business without paying off debts

In the process of liquidating an individual entrepreneur who has unpaid financial obligations, many difficulties arise. Almost the only option for liquidating an enterprise in this case is the bankruptcy procedure. A businessman has the right to submit an application if he sees that he cannot pay off existing debts, however, this decision imposes certain restrictions on subsequent activities, namely:

• prohibition of re-registration of individual entrepreneurs for 1 year;
• simultaneously with the recognition of bankruptcy, the registration certificate of the individual entrepreneur, as well as existing licenses, are cancelled.

It is important that bankruptcy does not exempt an individual from paying debts, but provides an opportunity to liquidate the company in order to avoid the emergence of new debts.

By adhering to the established procedure, having all the necessary documents in hand and treating the liquidation procedure with full responsibility, you can close an individual entrepreneur independently and in a short time.