Tax law and tax disputes
Reviews
The Russian President has signed the following laws: easing sanctions for breaching foreign currency legislation; on implementing a tax manoeuvre in IT industry: starting from 2021, corporate profit tax will be reduced from 20% to 3%, while the rate of insurance contributions will be cut from 14% to 7.6%; on establishing a preferential regime in the Arctic for companies that intend to implement new projects there.
The Russian Government has included in the submitted Recovery Plan for the Russian Economy measures to make currency legislation more liberal. In particular, it is planned to give up total control over foreign trade transactions and not to impose fines for the non-repatriation of proceeds in foreign currency next year.
Starting from 1 January 2020, it has become possible to adjust tax obligations for transactions with foreign persons further to a mutual agreement procedure.
Russia has joined the new OECD procedure that allows potential disputes with multinational corporations to be settled at the pre-trial stage (International Compliance Assurance Programme (ICAP) 2.0).
The Russian Finance Ministry and the Federal Tax Service consider as insufficiently effective their cooperation with experts from the World Bank with respect to the tax section of the Doing Business (DB) ranking.
The Russian Ministry of Finance is proposing to change the use of tax benefits in cross-border transactions in the draft of ‘Principle lines of budget, tax, and customs and tariffs policy for 2020 - 2022’.
The Russian Ministry of Finance is planning to include grapes used for the production of wine in the list of excisable products in 2020.
The Head of the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade has announced that the tax free system can be extended to cover all Russian regions by the end of 2019.
The Russian Ministry of Economic Development has suggested the concept of adigital special economic zone for the IT sector featuring many benefits, including tax benefits.
An
On 15 March, a public consultation started concerning amendments to the Russian Tax Code that were drafted by the Russian Finance Ministry and are aimed at settling disputes under international transactions and many other issues.
The State Duma has adopted a law to ratify a protocol to the Convention between the governments of Russia and Sweden on the avoidance of double taxation with respect to taxes on income.