Self-Employed Persons: Legal Qualification of Their Activity and Perspectives for Formation of a Special Regime

The article is devoted to legal issues of formation of a legal status of a self-employed person. Attention is focused on the mid-term results of the reforms introduced in 2016-2017, which led to consolidation of an opportunity of natural persons to conduct business legally without state registration by civil and tax legislation. The research contains analysis of the unrelated provisions of current legislation and other formal non-regulatory acts concerning the activity of self-employed persons, as well as court practice for some previous years, and also gaps and contradictions revealed by legal scientists, which seem to be a result of introducing of the new rules. Besides this the authors raise the issues of correlation of novels of civil and tax law with current provisions of labor law, legal regulation of protection of consumers’ rights and measures of governmental support of small business. The necessity of elaboration of a basic legal definition of a self-employed person applicable in for use in various areas of law is underlined in the article. The status of a self-employed person is compared with the status of an owner who uses property legally — an employee, an individual entrepreneur. It is proposed to approach the participation of self-employed persons in civil legal relations on an equal basis with entrepreneurs, according to the content and conditions of their activities. Also minding the existence of different categories of self-employed persons in tax legislation. The conclusion is made about the predominantly entrepreneurial nature of the activities of self-employed persons (with the exception for services exclusively for personal and household needs) to ensure a fair balance of interests of participants in civil legal relations. It is proposed critically comprehend and revise situations in which certain legal consequences depend on the status of an individual entrepreneur, and distinguish them from those where only the entrepreneurial nature of the activity is important. It is noted that a different approach to individual entrepreneurs and self-employed persons is permitted towards their responsibility within administrative legal relations. The authors also considered the possibilities of retraining of civil law relations to labor involving self-employed persons and the potential consequences of such retraining. The authors note the tendency of building a system of regulating of self-employed citizens activities in terms of incentives and benefits, but not their duties and responsibilities, and as a result the lack of a holistic legal regime for the legal regulation of their activities.

self-employed person, self-employment, self-employment tax, business activity, the entrepreneur’s liability, labor relations, governmental support of small business, legitimation of a business entity