Trade Tax Evasion in Retail Markets: Causes and Ways to Overcome

Cash register equipment is recognized as an effective tool for controlling the taxpayer’s proceeds in settlements with the population. At the same time, scientific and practical literature lacks scientific and methodological analysis of approaches to the formation of preferential categories of participants of trade relations exempt from state control in retail markets. The purpose of this study is to form common universal approaches to the mechanism of transformation of the established financial and economic models of behavior in the market territories. In the course of the study, the methods of systematization, comparison, logic, and statistical analysis were applied. It has been revealed that there are no common law enforcement approaches to the implementation of trade in the territory having the status of a retail market, which imposes additional obligations on the seller, different from taxation, but bearing financial and administrative costs without providing any advantages in comparison with other formats of trade. There are very few effective tools to counteract these risks. The article substantiates that the exemption from the obligation to use cash register technology (CRT), based on a superficial description of the criterion of the premises used and the principle of ensuring the “safety of goods”, does not provide a clear regulation of the boundary of the use of CRT in markets. According to the authors, when considering the issue of changing approaches to the formation of preferential categories exempted from state control in retail markets, it is important to establish what is the reason for exempting a person from using a cash register, i.e., why a taxpayer selling goods in the market is exempt from a cash register, but performing the same activity in a shop is obliged to use it? The article substantiates the conclusion that for a comprehensive solution to the problem, it is necessary to extend the privilege of non-application of KKT exclusively to payers of the unified agricultural tax (UAT), regardless of the category of the trading platform (markets, fairs, exhibitions, etc.), and to the relevant trade organisers (the organisation managing the market, fair, exhibition) — the obligation to control the use of KKT by other tenants with the introduction of the responsibility of landlords for the non-use of KKT by tenants.