How to file a complaint against an individual entrepreneur (IP)

Where to go

A complaint against an individual entrepreneur should be made at the place of actual business activity. Depending on the nature of the violation and the severity of the consequences, you can contact the following authorities:

Rospotrebnadzor.
Roskomnadzor.
Federal Service for Labor and Employment.
The Federal Tax Service.
State housing inspection.
OEBiPK (Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation).
Prosecutor's office and court.

Important! If we are talking about illegal business activity (without appropriate registration), then you should directly contact the Economic Safety and Security Commission or the prosecutor’s office.

You can read about the rules for drawing up official complaints in the article “How to write a complaint correctly”

Who can register an individual entrepreneur?

Almost anyone can register an individual entrepreneur. There are several restrictions: the legal capacity of the future entrepreneur should not be limited by law or court, he should not be in government or military service. If a citizen has not reached 18 years of age, he can become an individual entrepreneur only in one of the cases:

He got married.

He received his parents' consent to start a business.

There is a decision of the court (or the guardianship and trusteeship authority) on the full legal capacity of the citizen.

Even foreigners and stateless persons can open an individual entrepreneur if they have a temporary residence permit or residence permit in the Russian Federation.

Rospotrebnadzor

In case of non-compliance with the law guaranteeing the protection of consumer rights (when an individual entrepreneur was sold a low-quality product or service, when the buyer was short-changed, refused to comply with warranty service rules, etc.), you should contact Rospotrebnadzor, which can be done:

By sending a complaint by letter with notification to the address: 127994, Moscow, Vadkovsky Lane, 18, pp. 5 and 7. To draw up the document, it is better to use the sample

The letter can include materials that will confirm the facts stated by the applicant.

By personally contacting an authorized specialist, using the information posted on the official website of the Department. A citizen has the right to file a complaint against an individual entrepreneur not only to his territorial unit, but also to the Central Office of Rospotrebnadzor.
Call by phone and describe the current situation.
Online through the form rospotrebnadzor.ru/petition/, which can be filled out with authorization in the ESIA, which will become the basis for conducting an unscheduled audit of the entrepreneur’s activities. When filing an online complaint, the user can submit additional materials to Rospotrebnadzor by attaching the corresponding electronic files.

Have you discovered a violation in the service sector?

Consumers have every right to demand that services be provided professionally and within the specified time frame.

If you are dissatisfied with the result of the service provided, you should write a written complaint to Rospotrebnadzor. The application must be accompanied by supporting documents confirming the violation of the terms of the contract and the quality of the services provided.

A complaint is also filed with this body for failure to complete the work provided. For example, you ordered an apartment renovation, signed an agreement, made an advance payment, but the company did not provide the service within the agreed time frame.

Do not stand aside, fight and defend your rights, only persistence will help punish negligent entrepreneurs who carry out their activities contrary to the law.

Roskomnadzor

In case of violation of the current legislation providing for the protection of personal data, you should contact Roskomnadzor, a government body that must conduct an appropriate inspection and take the necessary measures. This applies to cases where the individual entrepreneur leaked such data, obtained it illegally or used it for other purposes. You can submit a complaint to Roskomnadzor:

By mail, sending a letter to the address: 109074, Moscow, Kitaigorodsky proezd, 7, building 2. It is important in the document to indicate which norm of the law was violated and in what form this was expressed (for example, spam mailings from companies whose services the client has not yet used).
Through the “Generate an appeal” option on the official website of the Department rkn.gov.ru/treatments/ask-question/. You must select “Personal Data Processing” as the topic.

Can an individual entrepreneur have employees?

An entrepreneur can hire employees under employment contracts. Limits on the maximum number of personnel are established only by the applicable taxation system. For example, on the simplified tax system or UTII the number of employees should not exceed 100 people, and when working under a patent - 15. If the number of employees exceeds the limit, the individual entrepreneur will lose the right to apply the regime and will have to switch to a general taxation system.

Hiring workers will require the individual entrepreneur to register as an employer with the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation and the Social Insurance Fund. There is no need to do this in advance; the funds will need to be notified when signing an employment contract with the first employee.

Federal Service for Labor and Employment

Violation of norms and standards in the field of labor protection is the basis for contacting the Federal Service for Labor and Employment. This applies to cases where the entrepreneur:

hires employees without official employment (without an employment contract);
does not comply with the norms of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation regarding the provision of sick leave, rest days, vacations, etc. to employees;
concludes civil contracts, while according to the law, contracts under the Labor Code, etc. must be concluded.

You can submit an appeal to Rostrud in several ways:

At a personal appointment with a Service specialist, which is held on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 10.00 to 13.00, on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 14.00 to 17.00 without an appointment. Reception by the management staff of Rostrud is carried out at the address: Moscow, Myasnitskaya street, 40, building 16 in accordance with the schedule strictly by appointment, which is carried out 5 days before the expected date of the visit. When visiting a specialist, a citizen has the right to submit a complaint against the individual entrepreneur, drawn up in writing, indicating which norms of the Labor Code were violated by him.
By e-mail to an Internet mailbox In this way, you can transfer not only the document itself, but also additional materials.
By Russian Post, sending a letter to the address: 101000 Moscow, Myasnitskaya street, 40, building 16.
Via the online form rostrud.ru/room/obrashcheniya-grazhdan/kremlin/. If the user wants the circumstances described to be verified based on his application or the persons guilty of committing an administrative offense to be identified, then before filling out the form he will have to log in through the Unified Identification and Autonomous Authorization. When filing a complaint online, you can submit additional materials (in electronic form) to the Service, no more than 25 MB each.

You can obtain more detailed information about the methods of filing claims with Rostrud, the timing and procedure for their consideration, by calling the group for working with citizens’ appeals (495) 402-03-36.

What types of checks are there?

Planned

Conducted according to a predetermined schedule. The frequency of inspection is no more than once every 3 years. After you have opened an individual entrepreneur or registered a legal entity, a scheduled inspection will not be scheduled for the first 3 years - this is stated in Federal Law No. 294. In addition, there is a moratorium on scheduled inspections of small businesses until 2021 - it was approved by President Putin. The bans do not affect tax audits: representatives of the Federal Tax Service have the right to come at any time . Scheduled inspections are not relevant to the topic of our article: only unscheduled inspections are carried out based on complaints.

Unscheduled

Can be held anytime. But there needs to be a compelling reason to do so. A customer complaint is just such a basis. But there is more:

requirement of the prosecutor's office. It works like this: interested parties (clients, representatives of regulatory authorities) contact the prosecutor, and he issues a resolution;
The regulations from the last inspection have expired. If a couple of months ago firefighters visited you and demanded that you replace your fire extinguishers with new ones, then they may come to check that the requirements have been met without warning. The law allows them to do this;
requirement of the President or Government of the Russian Federation. This hardly applies to small businesses and usually happens to large ones. But there are also exceptions. For example, the “Winter Cherry” club: a high-profile emergency occurred and the president ordered an unscheduled inspection of the company.

The result is this: if the client complains to the right place, they will come to you with an unscheduled inspection . They may not come, but will simply ask for documents. More details in the next part.

Summary characteristics of the organization of inspections

The Federal Tax Service

A citizen who has suffered from a violation by an entrepreneur of current labor legislation can additionally contact the Federal Tax Service. This is due to the fact that incorrectly drawn up employment contracts are often accompanied by an understatement of the tax base and the Service can force individual entrepreneurs to correct the situation taking into account the requirements of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation.

You can submit a complaint to the Federal Tax Service:

By mail, drawing up a document according to the sample. Along with it, you can transfer other materials that will indicate a violation of tax laws. You can send a notification letter to the Central Office, the Regional Federal Tax Service, or the territorial inspection.

By fax.
At a personal reception at the territorial tax authority. Reception of citizens by the leadership of the Service is carried out according to a pre-approved schedule. You can make an appointment via a separate dedicated telephone line (its number is listed in the “Contacts” section) or through an online form.
On the website ru/rn77/service/obr_fts/. In order for such a complaint to be accepted for consideration, the user must provide his personal and contact information, choose the method of receiving an answer, explain what the violation of tax laws is and provide other information, clearly answering the questions posed in the questionnaire. You can also attach several electronic files of no more than 2 MB each to your online claim.

You can get information about the schedule for receiving citizens and contacts for sending correspondence on the website nalog.ru.

Individual approach

Headquarters lawyers also resolve private issues. For example, during the pandemic, problems related to the banking sector became relevant.

“There were a lot of loan applications when banks for some reason did not accommodate entrepreneurs halfway. For example, the bank sharply limited loan limits for one trading company. We quickly got involved, checked that the entrepreneur met all the criteria established by the bank, talked with the bank, and the entrepreneur increased the loan to 500 thousand, which helped him avoid a cash gap,” says Anatoly Maltsan.

Another illustrative story is the refusal of a large bank to issue a loan to the owner of a chain of children's art supply stores for employee salaries at the zero percent promised by the Government. The situation was complicated by the fact that the entrepreneur was in self-isolation with two small children and could not come to the meeting at the bank. After the intervention of the headquarters, the loan was issued based on documents signed remotely.

State Housing Inspectorate

GZHI is a subordinate organization of the Ministry of Construction and Housing and Communal Services of the Russian Federation, where a claim can be sent if an individual entrepreneur:

organized noisy production in close proximity to (or in) a residential building;
fails to pay general utility bills on time or refuses to pay them;
during the day he receives a large number of buyers or clients, thereby causing inconvenience to other residents of the building where he works, etc.

You can only complain about an individual entrepreneur to the territorial division of the State Housing Inspectorate, taking into account its location. A resident of Moscow can submit an appeal to the Inspectorate as follows:

Send a written claim by letter with notification to the address: 129090, Moscow, Mira Ave., 19. You can verify its receipt using a special tracking number, which will be provided at the Russian Post Office when sending the letter.
To the email address for receiving applications from citizens [email protected]
Present to the head of the territorial unit or one of the heads of the State Housing Inspectorate at a personal reception. You can get information about the reception procedure, opening hours and location of public reception rooms on the official website ru.
Through the website of the Moscow Government. The State Housing Inspectorate should be selected as the recipient. In such an online form, you will need to not only indicate your personal data, but also clearly formulate what actions of the entrepreneur cause inconvenience to the residents of the house. To make the complaint more convincing, electronic files (video recordings, photographs, expert opinions, etc.) can be attached to the document, which will indicate a clear violation of housing legislation.

Important! After checking the facts specified in the complaint, an individual entrepreneur may be held administratively liable.

Is it possible to complain anonymously?

Since filing a complaint may subsequently lead to a negative attitude of the organization’s administration towards the employee, the question of where to complain about an employer anonymously is of fundamental importance for the latter. When deciding this issue, you should remember the provisions of Art. 7 of Law No. 59, which defines the requirements for a complaint.

Thus, the complaint must indicate the following information about the applicant:

initials (F.I.O.);
address for sending a response;
date of filing the complaint and signature of the applicant.

If the appeal does not indicate information about the applicant, then the official who accepted the complaint must be guided by the rules of Part 1 of Art. 11 of Law No. 59. These rules, in turn, require not to respond to anonymous requests.

So there is no answer to the question of where to complain about an employer anonymously, since government agencies do not work with anonymous complaints. At the same time, in practice, the issue of taking action on an anonymous complaint will be decided in each case individually, based on the actual circumstances of the case.

It should be remembered that if the appeal contains facts that make it possible to establish that the administration of the organization has committed or is preparing to commit an illegal act, then the employee who accepted such an appeal is obliged to forward it to his jurisdiction to take the necessary measures.

OEBiPK (Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation)

If there is reason to believe that an individual entrepreneur is conducting illegal business activities, is engaged in the legalization of proceeds from crime, or has participated in the commission of an economic crime, then the application must be sent to the Department of Economic Security and Anti-Corruption of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. In view of the gravity of the offense, it is better to directly contact its Main Directorate, which can be done:

By mail, sending a letter to the address: 107078, Moscow, st. Novoryazanskaya, 8a, building 3. The application should explain what facts indicate the illegal actions of the individual entrepreneur and, if possible, provide the relevant evidence, having first compiled an accurate inventory of it.
At a personal reception held by the head of the Department of Economic Safety and Security A.A. Kurnosenko. in accordance with the schedule xn--b1aew.xn--p1ai/help/Grafik_priema_grazhdan. Pre-registration is made in person or on the basis of an application sent in writing or electronically. The public reception is located at the address: Moscow, st. Sadovaya-Sukharevskaya, house 11.
Online through the form xn--b1aew.xn--p1ai/request_main, selecting the appropriate addressee (OEBiPK). Having become familiar with the rules and procedure for filling out electronic forms, the user will have to fill out the form, providing only reliable information that indicates the individual entrepreneur’s non-compliance with the current law. In the text of the appeal it will be necessary not only to describe the facts available to the applicant, but also to provide maximum information about the entrepreneur in order to search for him and establish his location.

Attention! Submission of knowingly false or falsified information may result in criminal penalties.

Prosecutor's office and court

Fraud, theft or misappropriation of funds is a reason to complain about an individual entrepreneur to the Prosecutor's Office, since administrative and criminal liability is provided for such acts.

Based on the region in which the entrepreneur operates, you must contact the appropriate territorial division of the Prosecutor's Office, using the information from the website genproc.gov.ru/contacts/map/?DISTR=&SUBJ.

If the Prosecutor's Office refused to open proceedings on the facts that were indicated by the applicant, or he wants to obtain monetary compensation or return of previously spent funds (forcibly), he should file a claim with the Magistrate or a court of general jurisdiction. But in view of the fact that for this you need to have a sufficient amount of knowledge in the field of jurisprudence, it is better to use the help of a lawyer who will help prepare documents and represent the plaintiff in court hearings.

How they view

The superior organization has a month to resolve protests from the moment they are received if they relate to decisions of tax authorities on liability for an offense or refusal to do so. If necessary, the period is extended (maximum by 30 days). For other protests, a similar period is 15 days, which will be extended in the same way. If there is no response to the claim within the specified periods, it will be appealed in court. Let us recall that in Art. 139.3 of the Tax Code there are cases when a protest is not considered.

When an act or action is appealed to a higher authority, it is suspended (until a decision is made on the claim only on the relevant application). Moreover, such a suspension is possible when an effective prosecution for a tax violation or refusal to do so is being challenged. The application is submitted together with a petition and a bank guarantee, which must comply with clause 5 of Art. 74.1 of the Tax Code and other conditions from clause 5 of Art. 138 NK. According to it, the bank undertakes to repay the obligatory payment under the controversial decision.

The legislative framework

When drawing up documents and contacting regulatory authorities with a complaint against an individual entrepreneur, you can be guided by the following legislative acts:

Federal Law “On the procedure for considering appeals from citizens of the Russian Federation” dated May 2, 2006. N 59-FZ.
Civil Code of the Russian Federation dated January 26, 1996. N 14-FZ (as amended on March 28, 2017).
Housing Code of the Russian Federation dated December 29, 2004 N 188-FZ (as amended on July 29, 2017).
Criminal Code of the Russian Federation N 63-ФЗ dated June 13, 1996. (as amended on July 18, 2017).
Federal Law "On the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation" dated January 17, 1992. N 2202-1-ФЗ.