Analytics and brochures

On March 15, 2012, the Presidium of the Russian Supreme Arbitration Court (SAC) heard the Aelita Software
Corporation case, in which the corporation, having won a case against the tax authorities, sought to recover 2.89 million rubles from those authorities in legal costs for its representatives’ fees. The appeal and cassation courts refused to grant an award for the costs in full, restricting the amount to 100,000 rubles. The same line of authority had developed in similar court decisions — the courts limited the amount of costs to be recovered to one twentieth or thirtieth of
the actual amount. However, the Presidium of the SAC on March 15 set a precedent, awarding the taxpayer its costs in full.

Despite the obvious advantages for owners of commercial real estate to engage management companies, the issues inevitably arise of apportioning liability and potential risks between an owner of a building and a management company and of how to reduce these risks.

In December 2011, adjustments were made to the Russian Federal Law On customs tariffs, the changes coming into force in the same month. Despite the fact that this law was supposed to be of a merely technical nature, bringing a range of laws into compliance with Customs Union terminology, it contains a number of substantial amendments that increase risks for persons involved in cross-border trade.

This article looks at the trends and prospects of the automotive industry from the standpoint of customs and foreign trade regulation. In particular, it provides an overview of the most significant issues in customs and foreign trade regulation that may impact the automotive sector.

The Russian President and Government have recently been talking more about the need to optimise groups of taxes, with high-quality economic growth depending on this. In particular, Vladimir Putin recently stressed that Russia must make its tax system more attractive for investors and competitive in comparison with the other countries of the Customs Union, even despite a risk of a shortfall in budget revenues. Without doubt, such initiatives of the Russian authorities cannot fail to cause investors to be optimistic. However, to evaluate whether the initiatives are realistic, and to assess the tax risks of business in the current year, it is helpful to look at the results of the past year.

Alongside actively developing cross-border economic, trade and customs law and adjusting to European standards and the WTO principles, Russia is seeing the adoption of rulings actually hampering foreign capital flow into the country. In January 2012, Russia’s Supreme Arbitration Court (SAC) published a ruling prohibiting taxpayers with foreign capital from deducting interest they pay on loans ‘with a foreign element’. Apart from the prospect of reducing foreign investments, this ruling may already entail considerable taxes being additionally assessed on Russian borrowers when tax audits are held.