Black salary

Wages, according to the law, must be paid according to the legal scheme with all relevant tax deductions. But not all employers adhere to this requirement.

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multicolored salary

Almost everyone has heard such names as white, gray and black salary. Different colors of wages are used to indicate illegal payments. Let's take a closer look at what it is.

White

According to the law, there is only an official salary, it is also white. The amount of official wages is set by the employer and is recorded in the relevant documents.

However, in accordance with the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, there are two mandatory conditions:

Wages should not be below the level established by law.
It must be paid twice a month.

The white salary in full passes through the entire document flow and indicates:

in the order for employment;
in an employment contract;
in accounting documents, etc.

At the same time, the entire process of calculating wages is easily traced, including bonuses, district coefficient, allowances for insurance experience, vacation or sick leave (if the employee was sick or goes on vacation) and other payments provided for by the enterprise. Often, the white salary is transferred in its entirety to, which facilitates the entire process of issuing and receiving money.

According to the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, wages are subject to personal income tax (PIT), which is paid by the employee himself. For residents of the Russian Federation, personal income tax is 13% . All other deductions (loan debts, alimony, etc.) are made after income tax has been deducted.

Also, a single social tax (UST) is charged on the official salary, in the amount of 26% of its amount. The UST must be paid by the enterprise or organization itself. It is easy to calculate that, for example, with an official salary of 50 thousand, an employee will receive 43.5 thousand, while it will cost the employer 63 thousand.

It is not surprising that hiding the true amount of wage payments is very beneficial for the employer, since it allows you to significantly reduce costs.

For an employee, white wages guarantee that all clauses of the Labor Code will be fully implemented:

vacation duration;
vacation and sick pay;
correct calculation upon dismissal, etc.

Gray

With a gray (semi-official) salary, its size is negotiated between the employer and the employee orally, only a part of it is reflected in the payrolls, and the rest is issued separately.

Thus, the gray salary consists of 2 parts: white (specified in the employment contract) and black (unofficial).

Gray salaries are beneficial not only to employers, but in some cases to employees:

The amount of personal income tax is reduced, since it is deducted only from the official part of the salary.
The size of some other deductions is reduced, for example,

The accrual of sick leave, vacation pay, as well as the calculation for possible dismissal, entirely depend on the position of the employer. Sometimes an oral agreement is concluded between the employer and the employee that all such accruals will be made from the true amount of the salary, and the employer keeps his word.

However, when hiring, employers often immediately put the applicant in front of the fact that vacation pay, compensation for unused leave upon dismissal, severance pay, etc. will be accrued from the official salary, i.e. its “white” part, and the employee has to agree with this.

In most cases, the official part of the salary is set equal to the "minimum wage" (the minimum wage allowed by law).

A separate issue is sick leave. The Social Security Fund reimburses employers for the days when an employee was absent from work due to illness. This is done on the basis of contributions listed in the FSS and calculated from the official salary. That is, if the employer decides to pay the sick leave to the employee in full, he will have to pay the difference out of his own pocket. He will not receive compensation from the state for it. Few will go for it.

With a gray salary, problems with bank loans may arise: the bank may consider the size of the official salary insufficient and refuse a loan.

And, most importantly, the insurance period and the size of the future pension, which is formed on the basis of contributions to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation and non-state pension funds, depend on the size of the official salary.

According to statistics, gray wages are mainly distributed in the following industries: trade (wholesale and retail), construction, manufacturing. Many of those who receive a gray salary do not know where to complain, and most often do not think about it at all.

Attempts to speak directly with the employer usually lead to the following: the employer agrees to make wages completely white and pay the UST for the employee in full, provided that his expenses do not increase. That is, if an employee costs him 50 thousand a month, this amount will remain unchanged. In this scenario, the employee will receive about 34.5 thousand "clean" in his hands. (Add here the deducted personal income tax - 13% and UST - 26% and get about 50 thousand). This amount is 9 thousand less than in the previous example - this is a noticeable difference. The conclusion is obvious. The vast majority will choose a gray salary instead of a white one.

Black

When the salary is completely black, the employee is not formalized at all when hiring: an employment contract is not concluded, the corresponding entries in the work book are not made, etc. The salary is fully issued in an envelope. In such cases, the organization is always double-entry bookkeeping, and black wages are paid out of unrecorded profits.

This scheme is convenient for businesses related to trade, transportation, where there is a constant turnover of cash.

Also, according to the black scheme, real estate offices and travel agencies often work, which do not formalize their agents and managers, but simply pay them interest on completed transactions.

As for social payments and guarantees, they are, as a rule, completely absent with a black salary. The gray and black salary turns into a financial benefit for the employee in the present and very vague prospects in the future.

What is fraught with?

The payment of wages through shadow schemes is very common, despite the negative consequences, since the benefits of today in the harsh conditions of the domestic economy are much more important. However, potential losses should be clear to every employer and employee.

For an employee

With a gray payment scheme, when according to official documents the salary is minimal, the employee has to be content with underpaid vacation pay and a small pension in the future.

With black wages, you generally don’t have to rely on sick leave, vacation pay, and even more so maternity leave (payment for maternity leave).

Also, the employer can generally dismiss an employee without severance pay and not pay him for the last worked period.

Employer's responsibility

According to the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, non-payment or incomplete payment of tax as a result of incorrect calculation is punishable by a fine of 20% of the unpaid amount. But if the tax base was deliberately underestimated, the fine will be 40% of the unpaid tax amount.

Also, the head and chief accountant of the organization may be charged with an article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for tax evasion on a large scale, if the amount of unpaid taxes for three financial years ranged from 500 to 2500 thousand rubles.

If the tax inspectorate has evidence of the payment of "salary in envelopes", this will not go unnoticed, since the question naturally arises of what income it is paid from. This means that the accounting department did not reflect the operation from which this income was received.

According to experts, it is difficult to change anything in the situation with gray and black wages, as long as only employers are threatened with fines. Personal income tax is withheld from wages by the employer himself, since he is the tax agent. This means that from the amount that the employee receives in cash, personal income tax must already be withheld, and the employee does not violate the law. At the same time, he does not have the opportunity to check whether the tax has been paid by the employer or not.

Report violations

Only a few decide to declare publicly about receiving a black salary. After all, there will certainly be questions about unpaid taxes and fees. In addition, usually employees are afraid of losing at least some source of income due to a conflict with management. But every conscious citizen has such a right.

Where?

You can apply for illegal wage payments to:

to the regional department of the state labor inspectorate;
to the tax service at the place of registration of the enterprise;
to the prosecutor's office at the place of one's own residence or at the location of the employing organization.

Going to court to assert your own rights begins with the filing of a statement of claim.

This document should contain standard information:

In the claim for the recovery of unpaid (gray or black) wages, you must indicate the amount of the debt.
If there have been instances of delay in wages, you can include in the application a requirement to pay interest for each day of delay.
It is allowed to demand in court to oblige the employer to hire the plaintiff officially, with the execution of an employment contract and an indication of the actual salary in it.
It is not necessary to declare a claim for compensation for moral damage, since it is usually collected for violations of non-property rights.

Collection of evidence

How to prove the payment of "salary in an envelope"? It's quite difficult, but possible. And one statement of claim is not enough. It is necessary to collect the maximum amount of evidence confirming the actual salary.

It can be:

A vacancy announcement posted in periodicals or the Internet - often indicates the proposed salary.
Information from the State Statistics Committee on the average level of wages of workers in a given specialty in a given region.
From the documents of the employer - pay slips, copies of payrolls. Often employees sign for 2 payrolls: for the white part of the salary and for the black part.
The envelopes themselves with the name of the employee - the larger the "collection" of envelopes, the better.
Employment contracts from previous jobs, if the salary there was white, it is illogical to leave a higher salary for a lower one.
Wage certificates - sometimes, at the request of an employee, the accounting department issues certificates indicating the true amount of salary, for example, to obtain a bank loan or a visa.
Testimony of witnesses-colleagues.
Audio and video recordings of conversations with the employer.

Arbitrage practice

Gathering the necessary evidence is much easier to do before dismissal - therefore, having decided to file a lawsuit, you should not rush to dismiss. And you should take care of this before attending the first court session.

The litigation is limited to certain time limits, so in order to collect additional evidence, you will need to file a motion to adjourn the case.

In the absence of weighty evidence, the court may immediately decide to refuse to satisfy the requirements of the statement of claim.

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Terms of decision

According to the general rules, civil cases are considered within 2 months from the date of receipt of the application. The decision to accept the statement of claim for judicial proceedings is made within 5 days. However, the recovery of wages applies to labor disputes, for which there is a reduced period for applying to the court.

In some cases, it is more profitable to file a complaint with the labor inspectorate than to file a lawsuit with a court.

There is no unequivocal answer to the question of how exactly one should prove one's case and how much evidence should be in the aggregate. That is, there is no list of documents that must be submitted to the court. In the same way, it is impossible to name specific evidence that guarantees a court decision in favor of the employee.

The above lists the most typical evidence that can help in a favorable outcome of the case. And the more evidence is collected, the more chances the plaintiff has to win the trial. An on-site audit of the enterprise by the tax authorities, carried out on the basis of complaints from its employees about the concealment of wages, can help.

You can suspect a particular company in the practice of black payments by the following signs:

Wages of employees are below the average level of wages in the industry or below the regional subsistence level.
There is a significant difference between the firm's earnings and the payroll, or the official payroll says that management is paid less than that of the rank and file.
There are inconsistencies in the salary histories of employees when it turns out that an employee receives less than at the previous place of work.
Certificates issued for obtaining a loan were found, indicating a larger amount of salary than in the reports for this enterprise.
The appearance of employees does not correspond to the level of wages.

However, it is worth noting that the probability of winning the court exists only in the case of a gray salary. With completely black payments and the absence of official registration of the employee, it is almost impossible to prove anything.

Attention!

Due to frequent changes in legislation, information sometimes becomes outdated faster than we can update it on the site.
All cases are very individual and depend on many factors. Basic information does not guarantee the solution of your specific problems.

Therefore, FREE expert consultants are working for you around the clock!