what do IT people choose?

Most often, orders are placed on the frontend, but there are also orders on the backend (Java, Golang, PHP, etc.). Once a customer even sent me a laptop with a deployed environment via business lines. A small thing, but nice.

GPC agreements can be concluded if the following conditions are met:

• performance of work does not require constant control of the employer and presence on its territory;

• the result of work or service can be measured and submitted according to the report;

• the contract is concluded for a short period of time to perform a certain amount of work or services;

• the performer uses his own materials, equipment, and tools in his work;

• it is allowed to involve co-executors, but the main performer is responsible for them;

• What is paid for is not the time spent on work or service, but the finished result.

Kamil Kalimullin

Founder of the IT platform AdvantShop

This is suitable for those who, for some reason, do not want to be employed, but are ready to deal with taxes and other documentation. For example, there may be some project agreements when a person does not want to become a staff member or the company does not plan to hire a staff member. Then they enter into such GPC agreements for temporary, project-based employment. But when you use such an agreement, you need to understand it and be able to conclude it. The contractor must understand the responsibility. The question may arise whether this is a business activity. If you have one or two GPC agreements, then you probably won’t have any questions. But if you have a lot of contracts, the question arises: “Why aren’t you an individual entrepreneur then?”

When working under a GPC agreement, the contractor is not a business entity – the obligation to pay taxes and insurance premiums lies with the customer. These are contributions to the performer’s pension and health insurance – 22 and 5.1%, respectively.

The contractor under this type of contract cannot count on paid leave and other labor guarantees and compensation. Entries are not made in the work book under the GPC agreement, although the length of service for the insurance pension is accrued, because the customer pays pension contributions.

Victor Ryndin

CEO of Wemakefab, co-founder of Dprofile

GPC agreements have advantages. Firstly, they also pay contributions to social funds: a pension is accumulated. Secondly, while working under the GPC, an employee can work in other places. GPC is a convenient format for working with non-residents of the Russian Federation; in this case, the employer does not pay social contributions for the employee. But there are also disadvantages for employees: for example, you need to manage paperwork yourself.

Anna Shestakova

HR Director ITECH

There are also disadvantages to working through a contract with a self-employed person or a GPC contract: less stability and guarantees of income level, lack of certain social benefits and guarantees provided under labor legislation, more responsibility for controlling one’s own workload, the need for a very high level of self-discipline and the ability to manage one’s time and finances, fewer opportunities for socialization.

Self-employment: individual entrepreneur

IT specialists who decide to work for themselves as an individual entrepreneur (individual entrepreneur) must be prepared for the fact that they will have to independently calculate and pay taxes, pay contributions to the SFR (Social Fund of Russia) and the services of the bank where the current account is located, and draw up paperwork ( accounts, acts), submit a declaration annually. This is compensated by noticeably higher incomes and the opportunity to easily work from abroad.

Ilya Saraev

Golang Developer

Individual entrepreneur is the most adventurous scheme, but alas, if you live abroad, it is the only one. A lot of problems arise: the need to familiarize yourself with local legislation, thick bitten off chunks of profit in the form of taxes, possible delays in transfers. In general, it's hard.

I had to figure out a lot of things: from processes to taxes. I opened an individual entrepreneur because I work from Serbia. I have my own projects that I plan to monetize in the future. This method is certainly inferior to all others. But specifically in my case, it provides a residence permit, plus it is a legal way to receive money from abroad. If I were in Russia, I would work according to labor standards.

The most popular types of registration of individual entrepreneurs are individual entrepreneurs with a patent or simplified taxation system (simplified taxation system).

Interesting opportunities open up for those who want to formalize IP under patent and does not live in Moscow or has the opportunity to register somewhere in the outback. There are quite a few regions of Russia where you can register as an individual entrepreneur, choose a patent tax system and pay only a few thousand rubles in taxes per year.

Having paid for a patent, you no longer have to think about taxes on annual income up to 60 million rubles. An individual entrepreneur pays taxes at the place of registration and on the terms of the region in which he is registered. Moreover, in fact, he can be anywhere and for as long as he wants.

U Individual entrepreneur with a simplified taxation system the tax burden will be 6% of income. A number of regions of Russia offer preferential conditions, reducing the simplified tax rate down to 1%. Such conditions may apply to all areas of activity or to some selected ones, and be provided for several years for newly registered ones.

At the end of each year, an order from the Russian Ministry of Economic Development sets deflator coefficient for different taxation systems. It depends on him whether this or that entrepreneur will be able to continue to apply the preferential tax regime with reduced rates. In 2024, the maximum income that allows you to apply the simplified tax system is amounts to 265.8 million rubles.

Victor Ryndin

CEO of Wemakefab, co-founder of Dprofile

A big advantage of working with an individual entrepreneur is that the employee determines the form and amount of income taxes himself when registering an individual entrepreneur. The disadvantage is that in addition to the obligation to pay fees, you need to do your own accounting. And although there are now many offers from banks, you will have to take on this work yourself and monitor the reporting deadlines yourself.

When registering an individual entrepreneur, you need to select OKVED – a four-digit code indicating the type of economic activity. For IT, the following may be suitable:

An individual entrepreneur can provide services and perform work personally or by involving his employees. A customer who has entered into an agreement with an individual entrepreneur receives a finished result without delving into how it was achieved. If an individual entrepreneur misses deadlines or violates contractual terms, then penalties, fines and even damages can be collected from him. And if the result does not reasonably satisfy the customer, then payment can be refused altogether.

The Labor Code of the Russian Federation no longer protects the performer. Rights and obligations are stated in the service agreement. And if this is an agreement of a foreign company, then the requirements specified in it may contradict the laws of the Russian Federation.

Self-employment

From October 2020 to 2023 IT sector came in among the three most common industries among self-employed workers – 366.9 thousand payers. The advantage of this status is a very simple mode of accounting for income and paying taxes: everything is done in a couple of clicks in a special application “My tax“

A self-employed IT specialist can register and register with the tax office in his region or where his customers are located. For example, living on Kamchatka, the developer cooperates with clients from Moscow. He has the right to register either in Kamchatka or in Moscow. You can change the region, but not more than once a year.

Self-employed people do not pay contributions to social funds, they do not have deductions and other taxes, except for the professional income tax (PIT). The basic tax rate when working with organizations is only 6%, the same as for individual entrepreneurs using the simplified tax system. But at the same time, in the tax regime there is a limit on annual income of 2.4 million rubles. If the limit is exceeded, self-employed people automatically lose their status.

At any time, specialists themselves can interrupt their activity as an NPA taxpayer: in the “My Tax” application there is a “Deregistration” button.

Alexey Marakhovets

Co-founder and product owner of 10-Strike Software

For the self-employed, I can say that this is not a very convenient scheme for qualified IT specialists, whose salary now already exceeds 300–400 thousand per month. According to federal law, the annual income limit for the self-employed is 2.4 million rubles, and they will exceed it within six months. But if the contractor complies, then this is a working scheme, yes – their tax is the smallest of all, and they are also exempt from mandatory insurance contributions. Self-employed status in IT is preferred by designers, writers, marketers and others, those who work with several customers at once. Freelancers, in a word. This is convenient because it is not tied to a geographical point and you can relocate somewhere.

The majority still prefer the classic form of employment under an employment contract. Because there are social guarantees, a pension, voluntary health insurance, redundancy payments, and a bunch of other cookies specified in the contract.

Self-employed people do not need to submit reports, have an online cash register or a personal seal. After receiving payment for a completed order in the My Tax application, the contractor generates a check confirming receipt of the money and sends it to the customer. Tax is charged on the amount indicated on the check, which must be paid by the 23rd of the next month.

There is no need to open a separate bank account. It’s convenient to withdraw earned money to a card, but for work it’s better to have a separate one: it’s more convenient to control the movement of money. The Federal Tax Service calculates income not by receipts on the card, but by checks. They must be generated after each order is completed.

Roman A.

1C developer

I chose self-employment for additional, non-core work. There are minimal difficulties with registration and taxes, there is an opportunity to work at the same time at your main job and freely plan your time, because there is no connection to office conditions or anything else. The result is important within the agreed time frame. I have only positive impressions from this method of design.

Self-employed IT performers are not legal entities, they are not registered as individual entrepreneurs, and their activities do not pose a threat to the lives of the people for whom they create software products. That's why Federal Law No. 99-FZ allows IT industry specialists to work without licensing.

It is convenient for companies to attract self-employed people to carry out individual orders by drawing up a civil contract with them, but it must indicate that the specialist has the status of an NPA taxpayer.

IT industry employees who can become self-employed include:

• programmers who develop and improve software are responsible for its performance and support;

• website creators and all specialists related to the maintenance and promotion of Internet projects: layout designers, web designers, SEO specialists, webmasters;

• database developers who create, maintain, and distribute databases on various media;

• system administrators, technicians, computer equipment testers;

• developers of useful mobile applications for smartphones and smart gadgets;

• marketers, analysts, methodologists;

• copywriters, rewriters, technical writers;

• game developers and testers;

• specialists involved in data protection;

• specialists in contextual and targeted advertising;

• SMM specialists, social network administrators, project moderators;

• interior developers, CAD engineers, designers, landscape designers, photographers;

• technical support staff.

The law does not prohibit a self-employed person in the IT field from combining several types of activities. Many specialists work in several places at the same time: they can be on the company’s staff and work for themselves, receiving orders on freelance exchanges. Officially registered self-employment makes it possible to legally earn extra money and earn more money. The main employer pays payroll tax for the employee, and the employee himself pays a 4-6 percent tax on additional income from fulfilling orders for individuals or legal entities.

Vitaly Sivkov

IT Recruiter at CoMagic

The self-employed have low tax rates, but at the same time, work experience is not calculated and the maximum income is limited to 2.4 million rubles per year. That is, it turns out that the average monthly income of a self-employed person cannot exceed 200 thousand rubles. If we take the median salary of a conditional middle developer, we get exactly 200 thousand rubles per month. I have not yet met employees who would refuse registration under the Labor Code of the Russian Federation in favor of contracts with the self-employed.

It must be remembered that self-employed people cannot sell other people’s software developments and there are restrictions on the sale of a number of goods. They can only sell their software and provide quality professional services.

There are more restrictions for the self-employed than for individual entrepreneurs:

• The self-employed person must not have been a former employee of the customer for the last two years.

• If the performer loses his self-employed status, he will have to pay insurance premiums and withhold personal income tax, as for an ordinary individual.

• The Federal Tax Service may have suspicions of avoiding formalizing labor relations if a self-employed person received his status shortly before concluding a contract and has no other customers. This may result in a fine.

What to choose: TD, GPC, IP

If we compare different options for formalizing the relationship between the customer and the contractor, we must take into account that an employee is the most dependent category on the employer, while self-employed people and individual entrepreneurs are recognized as independent entities equal to the customer. An intermediate position between them is occupied by ordinary individuals without individual entrepreneur or self-employed status, for whom the customer bears partial responsibility.

It is worth remembering that the Labor Code of the Russian Federation prohibits replace real labor relations with civil law ones, since they relieve the employer of part of the responsibilities for maintaining employees.

The experts and IT specialists interviewed agree that employment under GPC contracts, through individual entrepreneurs and self-employment is convenient for piecework wages, when a specialist is involved in working on a small project and the workload is required for a short time.