What does cashing out mean? Confession of a casher: how to make money out of thin air

What is cash withdrawal? To withdraw money from the account of an individual, private entrepreneur, company or organization for real use, there is the concept of cashing out.

Article No. 198 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation provides for punishment for violation of the cashing procedure, as this leads to concealment from paying taxes.

Cash withdrawals from bank accounts occur regularly. The economy of enterprises cannot exist without real money, because payment for work performed, construction materials and components is made in cash.

Individuals withdraw small amounts from an ATM. For entrepreneurs and organizations that involved banks or firms in cashing, the degree of liability is determined according to Art. No. 199 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

Cashing out money and money laundering are completely different things; for laundering, the perpetrators will be punished under Art. No. 174 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. In this operation, financial flows go in the opposite direction.

Cash received as a result of an economic or criminal crime is credited to a bank account for legalization.

What both money laundering and cash-out operations have in common is that these schemes violate government laws and harm the country’s economy.

Illegal circulation of funds leads to the spread of corruption schemes in the country, impoverishment of regional or federal budgets, and a lack of pension money for those who received wages in cash “in envelopes.”

For businesses that cooperate with municipal and government services, cashing is theft of federal funds, although the law establishes criminal liability for this crime.

Inspection organizations cannot completely prohibit the issuance of money, but regulatory authorities carefully check banking transactions to ensure that they are carried out in accordance with the law of the Russian Federation.

Private entrepreneurs and company managers justify their illegal machinations by the tax burden and the desire to pay employees wages on time and in the required amount, since hired people work without official registration.

Cash is also spent on the uninterrupted supply of production materials and resolving issues in the bureaucratic environment.

At first, it all looks as if the withdrawal of money necessary for the manager is completely legal, since there is no obvious fraud with borrowed funds.

An individual or the head of a company withdraws money from the account after signing payment documents. But then you still have to explain the legality of this operation through the bank.

It is possible to withdraw money from the account without violating the laws of the Russian Federation, but this procedure will subsequently lead to a fictitious increase in the company’s expenses and expenses and a reduction in taxes.

The organization significantly reduces profit indicators, increasing the costs of paying for non-existent services, and the amount of tax accordingly becomes smaller.

The owner of a one-day company is involved in the illegal cashing of money, who will receive a smaller percentage of the turnover after the end of the scheme than if the head of the organization paid taxes to the state.

However, both parties to the transaction forget that they are violating the law, according to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which provides for punishment for this.

Some schemes are used using false documents, without the involvement of an intermediary. In general, there are many schemes, and they are already known to the tax office, but some have specific differences depending on the specialization of the company or the profile of production.

Standard scam schemes for illegal cash withdrawals:

  • through fictitious individuals;
  • involvement of bank employees;
  • attracting shell companies;
  • use of false documents of random citizens;
  • application of certificates intended for obtaining maternity capital.

Individual entrepreneurs are often used as fraudsters; their role in the scheme is more difficult to define and identify.

One-day shell companies immediately disappear after an illegal transaction, but a private person, in the event of proceedings with the tax inspectorate, will remain and confirm his work for which he received money.

But if the tax service proves that these events are fictitious, then in the dock in the courtroom there will be not only the head of the enterprise who evades taxes, but also a private entrepreneur who thoughtlessly agreed to the proposal to cash out money through an individual entrepreneur, the consequences of which will also affect him.

To cash out money, an agreement is drawn up between an organization and an individual entrepreneur, under which individual entrepreneurs are hired to provide a number of services, many of which are difficult to trace, for example:

  • pre-start setup of equipment;
  • transportation of goods;
  • education, consultations, trainings.

It will be almost impossible to determine the fact that these works have been carried out if a month or two passes after the act is signed and the money is transferred to the account of a private entrepreneur.

If there are eyewitnesses who do not confirm the work done in accordance with the approved and signed act, then punishment will follow according to the law.

Withdrawing money through fake individual entrepreneurs is profitable, since the individual entrepreneur can manage funds from his bank account in any form.

For the inspection, its expenses are a whole component, so cashing out funds for a private entrepreneur is not a particular problem.

He gives the required amount to the head of the enterprise, leaving himself the previously agreed interest.

You can get cash within your own company, without involving intermediaries. In terms of execution, this scheme is somewhat more complicated, but in this case the manager will receive all the money, and he will not have to share it with anyone.

LLC enterprises can use the following schemes:

  • transfer of individual entrepreneurs, inflated expenses;
  • the manager issues a loan for a long term;
  • accrual of dividends;
  • via debit cards;
  • through persons receiving money on account.

Overstatement of gross costs

For example, the company purchases an impressive batch of fuel coupons by bank transfer for the operation of vehicles.

However, the tax inspectorate has long been familiar with this method, since such schemes have been used for a long time. The management will be assessed a serious fine in accordance with the articles of the Criminal Code of Russia.

In the loan scheme, there is no withdrawal of funds as such, because the head of the enterprise receives the loan money in cash, applying for it at minimal interest or without it at all.

With this scheme, the tax amount is reduced. By legislative standards, this action is controversial, since it provides for an interest-free loan with the subsequent deposit of funds into a bank deposit for a long period.

In this scheme, there is no need to involve dummies or close relatives, since issuing a loan for the purchase of a car or real estate does not run counter to the law.

It is not contrary to the law to receive a loan from the company’s funds for a long time if the company has a founder.

Before the tax audit, this money is not taxed because it is not considered profit, since these funds are credited to a personal bank account, you will not have to pay income tax on them.

True, at the end of the loan period the loan amount will have to be repaid, but during this time such serious changes may occur that the value of the cashed-in money may decrease due to inflation or the limited liability company itself will declare itself bankrupt.

Calculation of dividends

By law, LLC participants are allowed to pay dividends to the management of the company and to themselves.

The scheme is often used, because after receiving cash in the form of dividends, the amount of taxes paid will be less than the amount of profit calculated as tax liabilities.

This method is popular among managers of large individual entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs.

The organization issues borrowed money to an individual, which must be repaid within a specified period. The funds are transferred back through the company's cash desk.

If this does not happen, then if the money received is not returned, the reporting person pays tax on the income. In order not to pay it, management makes a second loan, covering the amount of the first.

Having repaid the debt, you can continue to carry out such operations indefinitely; from the point of view of the law, this is all absolutely legal.

Withdrawal of money from accounts through cards of individuals is carried out by purchasing valid bank cards or through paperwork with the help of a bank employee (accomplice) using the details of deceased people or expired non-existent documents.

The meaning of these operations is to split the amounts. According to Russian legislation, banks are required to report to Rosfinmonitoring all actions involving financial amounts exceeding 600,000 rubles.

To prevent fraud with a large sum from becoming noticeable against the background of other transactions, the founder uses a one-day company with a large staff of non-existent employees.

The director of this organization exists only on paper, and the documents are fake. Before crediting funds to a one-day company, the manager transfers salaries to fictitious employees.

Due to the large number of debit cards, you can withdraw up to 10 million rubles in cash. The operation can be carried out many times, withdrawing huge amounts.

Fake bank cards are not always used for this; the scam can be carried out through a real person, as long as he has an individual entrepreneur certificate.

Illegal withdrawal of funds through real or fictitious participants in the fraud leads to a decrease in financial revenues to the municipal or state budget.

What are the consequences of identifying a criminal group, and what punishment for cashing out money is imposed on the organizers and perpetrators?

Articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for legal entities and individuals assume the following responsibility for cashing out money in 2019.

If the amount of the hidden amount is more than 10% of the total tax amount, then the defendant faces:

  • a fine of 100 to 300 thousand rubles;
  • arrest of the accused person for up to six months;
  • forced labor for up to 1 year;
  • imprisonment for 1 year.

If the scam involves amounts of more than 20% of the total tax amount, then the fine will already be 500 thousand rubles, and the prison term will increase to 3 years.

For private entrepreneurs who made such a cash withdrawal for the first time and paid off tax and penalty deductions in full, Russian legislation provides for an exemption from liability.

How to cash out money in an LLC current account

Money belonging to an LLC cannot be easily withdrawn from a checking account. How to cash out funds legally and without significant time costs?

It's all about money. A novice businessman can forget about this at the stage, and the Federal Tax Service, ... But sooner or later, the LLC participants are faced with the question: how to withdraw money from a current account for personal needs? It would seem that we worked, developed the business, earned money, but we cannot get what we earned. Alas, that’s all true.

The organization's funds are not the entrepreneur's money, it is the society's money. And society can only pay them out in the form of salaries or dividends. That is why the dissonant concept of “cash out or cash out” appeared.

In this article we will consider possible options for withdrawing funds from the LLC current account. At the same time, we will only talk about legal, legal methods that will not lead to a conflict with the tax service.

Required for every legal entity. The Tax Code requires that taxes and contributions to the budget be transferred in non-cash form; cash is not accepted for this purpose. Therefore, it will not be possible to work completely without opening an account, unlike individual entrepreneurs, who did not dare to limit them in this matter. Individual entrepreneurs can work without a current account and make payments in cash completely legally.

But it must be said that a current account is a very convenient tool for doing business, allowing entrepreneurs to significantly save time on making non-cash payments. It has a lot of advantages, but there are only two disadvantages for LLC participants: it is difficult to cash out funds and there is a chance of getting sanctioned by regulatory authorities and having the account blocked. Account blocking is usually related to tax problems and does not occur often, but cash withdrawals from an LLC's checking account are a common occurrence.

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How can an LLC withdraw money from its current account?

There are several ways to withdraw money from your LLC current account. Let's look at each of them in detail.

  1. Payment of wages. This is the simplest and most obvious method, but not the most profitable. By paying contributions to funds from your salary, giving the state 13% in the form of personal income tax, you will lose about a third of the amount.
  2. Dividend payment. Members of the company have the right to receive profits from the activities of the LLC. Dividends can be paid from the company’s net profit and distributed among participants in proportion to their share in the authorized capital. In this case, we give only 13% of personal income tax to the state. The bad news is that dividends can be paid no more often than once a quarter. In addition, Article 29 of the Federal Law of 02/08/1998 No. 14-FZ “On LLC” contains a ban on the payment of dividends in a number of cases.
  3. Issuing a loan. The company can issue a loan to any individual, including members of the company. A loan agreement is drawn up (preferably with a small percentage) for any period, at least 10 years. True, sooner or later the loan will have to be repaid, so this method of cashing out is only good in case of an urgent need for cash.
  4. Withdrawal for expenses. A suitable option is when an LLC performs any work for itself or purchases goods, paying the counterparty in cash. A check is filled out at the bank, and “current expenses” can be indicated in the payment purpose. The downside is that all expenses must be supported by documents, and the bank will charge a commission for the transaction. It is also necessary to comply with the write-off standards for expenses, which are set out in Article 264 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation.
  5. Travel expenses. An ideal reason to withdraw money from your current account. But employees will be required to submit advance reports. With a large number of employees, monthly travel expenses amount to quite a decent amount.

The listed ways to get cash can certainly help you solve the problem. However, experienced businessmen advise not to get carried away with cashing out, but to try to spend most of your expenses (car, communications, travel, household appliances, etc.) as company expenses. In this case, there will not be a great need for cash.

In conclusion, a few words on liability for illegal cash transactions. Officials are brought to criminal liability with charges of violating tax laws, tax evasion, forgery of documents, etc. Banks lose their license. Heavy fines and imprisonment are used as punishment. Therefore, it is better not to succumb to the temptation to participate in “gray” combinations, but to receive income from business through legal methods.

Hello! In this article we will tell you whether it is possible to cash out money from an LLC’s current account.

Today you will learn:

  1. Is it permissible to withdraw funds?
  2. How to cash out legally.
  3. What documentation is required for cashing out?

For what purposes funds may be needed

The money that is kept in the company belongs to the organization itself, and not to its founders. Therefore, the issue of cashing out can become a problem.

The banking organization services your company's account, but does not perform a supervisory function. Therefore, if you complete all the documentation correctly, you will most likely receive the required amount.

Cash may be needed for various purposes, namely:

  • purchasing materials for work;
  • payment for goods to suppliers who do not work on a non-cash basis;
  • payment for business trips and so on.

Or a situation may arise when money is needed for the personal purposes of any of the founders.

Required Documentation

The process of receiving money is carried out using a check. For this purpose, a checkbook is issued.

The registration procedure takes a maximum of 14 days (depending on the bank) and is inexpensive. You can also use a debit payment card.

Any employee of your organization can receive cash. To do this, he just needs to present his passport and power of attorney to receive funds. Moreover, not all banks require it. And according to the law, this condition is not mandatory.

If you plan to receive a large amount, order cash in advance. But on the other hand, in this situation the bank commission is usually lower.

After you receive the money, capitalize it using a receipt order. On the same day, give them to the person for whom you received them.

In this case, the basis for issuance will be:

  • - if funds are needed for household purposes. needs or travel expenses;
  • Sheets - if there is a conversation about receiving or.

How can you withdraw funds legally?

First of all, you need to withdraw money from the LLC's current account legally, so that the expenses on which you plan to spend it are tied to the actual activities of your company.

There are several expense items that do not raise questions from a legal point of view.

1. Issuance of salaries.

Paying cash through a cash register is not prohibited by law; by the way, quite a large number of organizations still prefer to give money to their employees this way.

This is the most convenient option to cash out money legally, of course, if you pay your employees on time and in full.

This expense item is unlimited in amount and frequency of payment, this is especially important if the director is both an employee and the owner of the company.

But do not forget that all documentation on the basis of which salaries are calculated must be available.

2. Through an agreement with an individual entrepreneur.

This method is legal and has nothing to do with fraudulent schemes.

It consists of the following: you enter into an agreement with the owner, working at 6%.
In this case, the individual entrepreneur provides your company with certain services:

  • Provides you with a building, equipment or transport for rent;
  • Transfers to your company the right to use either a logo (under a license agreement);
  • Searches for clients for your company (under an agency agreement) and so on.

The only thing is that you must have documents confirming the provision of services. Most often this is a contract and acts of services rendered.

3. Dividends.

Since the founders organized the business to generate income, they have every right to receive dividends.

In this case, two conditions must be met:

  • Payment can be made once a quarter;
  • It is first necessary that 13% be accrued from the account of your LLC.

4. Economic needs of the company.

This article can include the purchase of a wide variety of goods: from writing instruments to inexpensive equipment (the cost should not exceed 100,000 rubles).

This can also safely include payment for renting a vehicle, payment for drawing up reports and performing repair work. The main thing is to pay personal income tax.

There is also an important nuance here: If you receive funds for this cost item, the banking organization will charge you a commission. Its size varies from 0.1 to 1% of the issued amount. In addition, you must confirm expenses with acts, checks and invoices.

5. Payment of travel allowances.

A very good reason to get cash. But these funds can only be issued to an employee of the company, and the money that he does not use will need to not only be returned to the cash desk, but also an advance report must be written.

Also keep in mind that there are some pitfalls. Although companies are now legally allowed to set their own daily allowance limit, only 700 rubles of them are not subject to personal income tax (clause 3 of Article 217 of the Tax Code) this is for business trips within Russia and 2,500 rubles if an employee is sent abroad.

Also, daily allowances above the limit are subject to insurance premiums. True, they are exempt from paying contributions for injuries.

Also, without fail, the employee must justify, and document, the purpose of his trip related to the development of the company. In other words, prove the business nature of the business trip.

6. Applying for a loan.
The company has the right to provide money from its account to both individuals and other organizations in the form of a loan.

True, in the second situation the payment must still be non-cash, but with the first there are no problems.

You can issue a loan to your employee for any period, by agreement with the employee himself.

You can issue a loan without interest, but you will still have to pay taxes. This is due to the fact that interest that has not been accrued is income and therefore subject to taxation.

Therefore, it is better to take out a loan with interest so that you do not have to pay 35% personal income tax.

But even in this case, you need to take into account the following: if the interest rate specified in the agreement is less than 2/3 of the refinancing rate, then the employee receives income - material benefits from saving on interest. It will need to be subject to a personal income tax of 35%.

A unique method of cashing out is to transfer funds from the account to the manager’s card, and then withdraw money through an ATM. But banking organizations still consider this a non-cash payment.

In addition to the options that we discussed above, there are also illegal cash-out schemes. We will not talk about them, we will only note that if such a scheme is identified, it is fraught with serious problems.

Conclusion

We looked at options for cashing out money from the company's current account. All of them can be used in combination, but it is advisable to consult with a competent accountant to avoid mistakes. He will also tell you which method is the safest.

Like many other tax and financial crimes, cashing out funds for the purpose of tax evasion exposes those involved in this scheme to severe penalties. The penalty for illegal cash withdrawals committed with the participation of an individual - an individual entrepreneur - is specified in Article 198 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. If the cash transaction took place with the participation of a bank, private or government organization, then the degree of responsibility of the fraudsters will be determined under Article 199 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

Cash withdrawal should not be confused with another similar article of the Criminal Code - money laundering (Article 174 of the Criminal Code). In this case, the financial transaction occurs in the reverse order: cash acquired by criminal means is legalized by being credited to a bank account. These fraudulent schemes have one thing in common - they all violate the law and damage the economic security of the country.

Cash withdrawal schemes

How exactly does cash withdrawal take place and why is it necessary for the company’s management? At first glance, it may seem that cashing out is carried out quite legally, because there is no fraud with borrowed funds. The director of the company or private entrepreneur has the authority to sign payment documents for withdrawal of money from the account. However, any transaction through a bank account must subsequently have a legal explanation. Cashing out is not intended to withdraw money from an account (this can be done without breaking the law), but to fictitiously increase the organization’s gross expenses.

By carrying out an operation to transfer money for performing non-existent services, the company's management unlawfully understates the profit of its enterprise. Accordingly, the tax base decreases.

The owner of a fly-by-night company, with whose participation the funds are cashed out, receives a significantly lower percentage for mediation in the scam than the amount that the owner of the money would have to pay to the state in the form of taxes. In addition, some cash-out schemes allow transactions to be carried out without an intermediary, through the production of false documentation.

Cashing out occurs according to the following schemes:

  • through shell companies;
  • with the participation of the bank;
  • through individuals - individual entrepreneurs;
  • using stolen or false passports of individuals;
  • using certificates for receiving maternity capital.

Each of the listed schemes has characteristic differences. However, they also have common features - the fictitious nature of the transaction and a contradiction with the law. To understand the procedure for withdrawing money from a bank account, you should consider in detail the most commonly used schemes.

Through IP

Unlike using a specially registered shell company, cashing out through the involvement of individual entrepreneurs (IP) as participants in a fraudulent scheme will subsequently be more difficult to prove. Indeed, unlike a shell company, which is liquidated immediately after the operation is completed, a private entrepreneur does not disappear anywhere. And if necessary, he will be ready to confirm his words in court.

However, the risk here is higher. If the investigator proves that the transaction is fictitious and the fact of tax evasion, then not only the director of the company who carried out the cashing, but also the entrepreneur who was a fictitious partner in the transaction may end up in prison.

So, how does cashing out through an individual entrepreneur take place? Initially, an agreement for the provision of work or services is concluded between an individual entrepreneur and a company. Among the latter, those most often used are those that are difficult to track: setting up equipment, consulting, conducting training, transporting goods and similar work. One way or another, in the event of an inspection after two or three months, it will be almost impossible to determine whether the services specified in the contract were actually provided. Unless one of the parties to the transaction makes a mistake or there is a witness who will refute the fact that the work was performed.

For the provision of a non-existent service, money is transferred to the individual entrepreneur’s bank account. The entrepreneur cashes them out and gives them to the director of the company. The amount of commission for individual entrepreneurs is agreed upon in advance.

Through LLC

Cashing out funds within the company itself, without the participation of an intermediary, is a little more difficult, but such a scheme does not require the participation of an intermediary. This means that the director does not need to share with anyone.

Quite often, cashing out occurs by inflating the gross expenses of the enterprise. For example, a large number of gasoline coupons are purchased by bank transfer for a company’s fleet. Of course, a significant portion of these coupons are then sold in cash. In this case, the tax base is reduced by several million rubles. The only drawback here is that such a scheme is well known to the fiscal authorities. Accordingly, the result of such an operation will be the accrual of a significant fine.

In terms of legality, the least dubious cashing out occurs by paying dividends to the company’s management. The law gives the founders of an LLC the right to pay themselves dividends. The amount of taxes paid will be less than when paying income tax.

Another way to minimize taxation is to issue a long-term loan to the head of the company. Formally, cashing out does not occur here, since the director issues a long-term loan to himself, usually at minimal interest or without paying it at all.

Via debit cards

Cash withdrawal through debit cards of dummies occurs by purchasing valid bank cards or issuing cards through an accomplice in the bank using false documents (homeless, deceased, etc.). The meaning of this operation is to split the money converted into cash.

Current legislation stipulates that banks must report to Rosfinmonitoring any financial transactions where the transaction size exceeds 600 thousand rubles. To remain unnoticed, the director of the enterprise uses a fictitious shell company with several dozen non-existent employees. After money is transferred from the enterprise’s account to a shell company, its director (who exists only on paper, since the company is open, most likely also on a stolen passport) pays salaries to the same fictitious employees. If cashing out involves 20 debit cards, you can withdraw up to 10 million rubles in cash in one day, after which the procedure can be repeated several times.

This method of cashing out does not always happen using purchased or counterfeit debit cards. Participants in an illegal scheme may well be real citizens with whom a civil law contract is concluded. However, for this they must be individual entrepreneurs (IP).

Is it possible to legally cash out?

Illegal cash withdrawal, although it promises considerable profits, has one significant drawback - it threatens all participants in this scheme with criminal liability. In addition, the seized money will be confiscated, and this implies the loss of several million rubles for each transaction performed.

Can cashing out be made completely legal? If we are not talking about tax evasion of an organization, but about minimizing the amount of taxes, then this is quite realistic.

At the moment, the least controversial, from the point of view of the law, cashing out can be done through a long-term interest-free loan with a subsequent transfer of funds to a deposit account in a bank. It is not necessary to use dummies or family members for this. If we are talking about an organization with one founder, then issuing a loan to purchase an apartment or house for a period of up to 20 years will not be in conflict with the law. And since legally these will be loan funds deposited in a personal bank account, and not income subject to taxation, you will not have to pay 13% income tax on them.

Of course, after 20 years the loan will have to be repaid. However, it is difficult to judge what the real value of this money will be by that time, taking into account inflation and the ruble exchange rate. In addition, within 20 years the company itself may go bankrupt or close for other reasons.

Responsibility for cash withdrawals

Illegal cash withdrawal through a shell company or in any other illegal way threatens the organizers and participants of the criminal scheme with liability under Article 198 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (for individuals) and Article 199 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (for legal entities). According to the provisions specified in paragraph 1 of Article 198 of the Criminal Code, tax evasion committed on a large scale (the amount of concealment exceeds 10% of the total amount of accrued taxes) provides for:

  • forced labor for up to 12 months;
  • arrest up to 6 months;
  • imprisonment for up to 12 months.

The same actions, including cashing out an amount amounting to more than 20% of the total tax amount, increase the maximum fine to half a million rubles, and imprisonment to 3 years.

It is worth considering that paragraph 2 of this article of the Criminal Code allows for the release from punishment of participants in a criminal scheme if they first came to the attention of law enforcement officers while cashing out, and at the same time fully paid off all fines and taxes assessed to them.

Article 199 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which explains the punishment for cashing out money from organizations on a large scale, or any other fraud with tax reporting for the purpose of illegally concealing the amount payable to the state treasury, provides:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MZyN7Pb_fI

  • fine from 100 to 300 thousand rubles;

    • As in the case of Article 198 of the Criminal Code, persons who have committed illegal cash withdrawal for the first time are not held accountable, provided that all fines and taxes accrued to them are fully repaid.

By resorting to cash, a business entity enters into an agreement with a shell company, under which the latter fictitiously “supplies” non-existent goods or various services provided only on paper to the business entity. Non-cash funds transferred by a business entity to the current account of a fly-by-night company are then withdrawn from the bank by check and, minus a predetermined percentage, transferred to the manager or owner of the business entity.

In most cases, fly-by-night companies are used for several months. Then the cash organizers liquidate them or simply abandon them. The nominal owners and managers of such companies are often persons with alcohol or drug addiction, infantile, degenerate or mentally retarded citizens of the Russian Federation. In addition, many “fly-by-night companies” are registered using lost, stolen, or acquired passports in one way or another illegally; accordingly, the formal founder, and therefore responsible for non-payment of taxes, is a person not related to the transaction (for example, a homeless person or an alcoholic), while the entire transaction amount is distributed between the customer and the anonymous executor of the cash-out scheme. This is what the head of the Department of Economic Security of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, Police Lieutenant General Sergei Meshcheryakov, told Rossiyskaya Gazeta in 2006:

The problem is that we still do not have a unified database of lost and stolen documents. As a result, two thirds of all illegal cash withdrawals today occur on stolen passports, including those for deceased people. We are talking about huge sums: 7.5 billion rubles were involved in one of the criminal cases.

The latest audits that were carried out by the Accounting Department on the effectiveness of legislation on state registration of legal entities apparently quite surprised representatives of the Accounts Chamber. This is how a huge number of “mass” registrars were identified. This is when several companies are registered under one person. Currently, things have reached the point where one citizen can have about 2 thousand companies at once. A large number of cases of forgery of notarized signatures during the creation of companies have been revealed. In addition, auditors of the Accounts Chamber received confirmation from law enforcement agencies that a large number of companies are registered using fake documents. All this leads to the fact that the treasury annually receives less income from taxes. Having analyzed the current situation, the Accounts Chamber, in order to combat tax evasion, proposed introducing into legislation the concept of “one-day company” and establishing its characteristics.

In this regard, it should be noted that “fly-by-night companies” are registered not only using stolen passports, but also using passports that are not listed as lost.

Prevalence

In Russia, of the newly registered companies, approximately half are created using forged documents and a non-existent address. The turnover of fly-by-night companies, which are a very important part of the “cash out” scheme, is quite large on a national scale - 120-150 billion dollars annually. Such data were announced in March 2009 at a round table in the non-governmental non-profit organization Chamber of Commerce and Industry and published in Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the official publication of the Government of the Russian Federation:

According to the head of the Department of Economic Security and Anti-Corruption of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Nikolai Getman, out of 4 million business structures, only one and a half million actually work. Other firms and organizations often show signs of being one-day companies, that is, they appear and disappear from the field of activity of regulatory authorities. However, Nikolai Getman emphasized that there are no official statistics yet, these are expert estimates. But they also make it clear how serious the problem under discussion is. Shell companies are created, as a rule, for a specific operation for a short period of time, often using fictitious passports and powers of attorney. They do not submit reports and disappear after the operation is completed. According to experts, an insufficiently clear legislative framework does not allow a truly large-scale war to be launched against this phenomenon.

Interview with Nikolai Getman ““Horns and hooves” do not die”, “Rossiyskaya Gazeta” - Federal issue No. 4869 of March 18, 2009.

According to information provided by Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank Viktor Melnikov, the volume of cash withdrawals in Russia in 2007 amounted to 1 trillion rubles. Consequently, business entities that used cash in 2007 underpaid VAT and income tax to the Russian budget in the amount of 356 billion rubles. First Deputy Head of Rosfinmonitoring Yuri Korotky also spoke about the problem of cashing out budget money through shell companies and other financial irregularities:

The relationship between the cash-out system, “fly-by-night companies” and unscrupulous banks was noted by the head of the Central Bank Sergei Ignatiev in an interview with Rossiyskaya Business Gazeta; he also determined the average remuneration for services rendered (as a percentage) of the amount cashed out.

Most often, cashing out is used to evade taxes when paying salaries. The fact is that it is often more profitable to cash out funds at 8-10 percent, spending them on some other expense item and pay wages “in envelopes” than to pay the unified social tax (most often it is 26 percent), and even from the salary itself - 13 percent income tax. Just a few years ago, the bulk of funds were cashed out using shell companies. Nowadays, wholesale banks are mainly used, which exist for a short time (from several months to a little over a year) and during this period pump billions of rubles through themselves.

Legal liability

Cashing out is accompanied by the inclusion of knowingly false information in tax reporting, and therefore is a crime. The use of “cash” can lead to criminal liability according to the criminal legislation of Russia (Article 198 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Evasion of taxes and (or) fees from an individual” and Article 199 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Evasion of taxes and (or) fees from organizations")

Corruption

Mikhail Grishankov, first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Security, said the following in an interview with NTV in 2008:

In many situations they were actually known and the people behind such transactions were known. You know, when two weeks before the death of Andrei Kozlov it turned out that one of the managers told me many stories about cashing out and he gave me an example - one of the bankers cashed out twenty million dollars a day, from these twenty million dollars he personally went into his pocket put in about five hundred thousand - he immediately gave away three hundred thousand in bribes

Theme of cashing in art

The topic of cashing, which worries many artists, is widely reflected in detective works and films, for example, in the film “Hello, we are your roof! "There is a moment dedicated to this event ( excerpt).

Causes

The main reason for using cash is the desire to reduce the tax burden on a business entity. In addition, cashing is widely used to steal funds from federal, regional and municipal budgets.

Also, the reason for using cash is the impossibility of legal payments with corrupt officials, illegal migrants, etc.

With the help of cashing, owners of large shares in the authorized capital of business companies withdraw profits, bypassing minority shareholders.

Hired managers and employees of logistics services use cashing to steal non-cash funds of business entities.

In addition, the reasons for such a phenomenon as “cash out” are in many ways similar to the reasons for the emergence of other phenomena of the “shadow economy”.

Social consequences

The main consequence of using cash is a huge amount of taxes underpaid by business entities. However, the harm of cash for society does not end there.

Business entities that use cash in most cases distort accounting and, as a consequence, statistical reporting. Huge distortions in statistical reporting deprive the government of the opportunity to truly analyze economic processes and make it difficult to make management decisions.

In addition, the use of cashing causes enormous harm to the developing Russian stock market. Joint-stock companies that hide profits and withdraw funds bypassing minority shareholders undermine investor confidence in all shares of Russian issuers without exception. The use of cash makes auditing difficult, making the financial activities of business entities opaque for investors and creditors.

Money received as a result of using cash gives rise to thousands of other crimes - thefts, robberies, cases of fraud, extortion and blackmail. Business entities that actively use cash-out schemes often become easy prey for raiders and unscrupulous law enforcement officers.

Links

  • “How much do they earn from cashing out”, broadcast: Bolshoy Dozor (together with Vedomosti), radio station "Echo of Moscow".
  • “Strengthening control in the field of banking activities”, broadcast: “Interview”, radio station “Echo of Moscow”.

Notes