Unified social tax debt: what are the consequences?

We continue to talk about tax debt. In this article, we will discuss the consequences of the unified social tax debt.

Financial and administrative liability is provided for violation of the procedures and deadlines for the payment of the unified social tax.

Financial responsibility

As soon as it becomes clear that the unified social contribution has not been accrued and paid within the relevant timeframe, the payer must independently accrue and pay such contributions, including penalties.

If such a failure is detected by the tax authorities, a fine must be paid in addition to the amount of the unified social tax and penalties:

• 10% of the amount of unpaid unified social contribution if the violation was committed before January 1, 2015;
• 20% of the amount of unpaid unified social contribution if the violation was committed after January 1, 2015.

A penalty is charged for each day of such failure to pay, starting from the first day following the deadline for the payment of the USC. The amount of the penalty is 0.1% of the amount of underpayment for each day of delay.

Once the tax authorities have identified the debt, they draw up a decision on the application of penalties and send it to the debtor within three days. It can be appealed in court within 10 days of its receipt. If you decide to appeal against such a decision, you will need to notify the tax authorities, and the deadline for paying the penalties will be suspended until the final decision is made.

The statute of limitations for non-payment of the unified social tax, as well as fines and penalties, does not apply.

Debt collection

If you have a tax debt, you will receive a demand from the fiscal authorities to pay it within a certain period of time:

• 10 days following the deadline for payment of the liability if the debt is for unified social security contributions for employees;
• 15 days if the unified social contribution debt is "for yourself".

A demand for payment of a debt is an enforcement document. This means that after receiving it, the debtor must pay the arrears, fine and penalty within 10 calendar days from the date of its receipt. The demand is served on the debtor by registered mail with notification or in person.

The amount of the debt itself cannot be appealed, only the amount of the fine and penalty can be appealed.

If the debtor fails to pay the debts on time, then such a claim is sent to the executive service and they will then deal with debt collection.

Once the claim is transferred to the enforcement service, the debtor will have to pay an additional enforcement fee of 10% of the debt amount.

Administrative responsibility

Fines are imposed on individual entrepreneurs and legal entity officials for late payment of unified social tax:

• from UAH 680 to UAH 1,360 if the amount of unpaid unified social contribution does not exceed UAH 315,300;
• from 1360 to 1700 if the amount of the unified social contribution exceeds 315300.

If the same official is brought to justice again within a year, the fine will be from UAH 2550 to UAH 5100.

In the next article, we will talk about the tax debt on the single tax.