Yekaterinburg fitness centers are at risk of closure due to tax inspections.

      In Yekaterinburg, fitness centers are suffering due to tax inspections. They are being forced to pay a tax of 35% for trainers working under service contracts as co-executors, under the pretext of signs of labor relations. Lawyer Dmitry Lebedev noted that representatives of the Federal Tax Service do not understand the specifics of the business sector and are pushing fitness centers towards mass closures.

      The lawyer reminded that the tax service received an assignment from the Ministry of Finance to conduct inspections of self-employed individuals. In reality, inspections are being carried out regarding small and medium-sized businesses working with self-employed individuals, sometimes bringing them to the brink of liquidation.

      — Let's take fitness centers. They work with trainers under service contracts as co-executors because that is the specificity. Keeping a trainer on an employment contract is unprofitable; they are tied to specific clients and do not have constant employment. Thus, all fitness centers have switched to a scheme of working with self-employed individuals based on such contracts, which is a working and legal scheme. But the tax service says: "They provide services on a regular basis, receiving money for it, so there are labor relations." According to this logic, the fitness center must pay a tax of 35%, which makes the business unprofitable. This will end with a wave of layoffs and business liquidations, — Lebedev told the EAN publication.

      Such decisions by the tax authority are being challenged in courts, but often the courts side with the Federal Tax Service. Earlier, we reported that stores in a Yekaterinburg shopping center began to close en masse.