The Ministry of Finances and the FTS are ready for dialogues with the taxpayers

25.03.2013

The first meeting of the Workforce of improving the tax administration was held at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Russia on March 14 of 2013.

Dmitry Fadeev, Deputy Director of the Law Department of the CCI of Russia, pointed out that the meetings of the Workforce began in late 2012, their purpose being “filling the void” between the current work of the Tax Experts’ Council under the CCI of Russia and the preparation of the annual Tax Forum.

The following persons attended the meeting:

• Sergey Razgulin, Deputy Director of the Department of tax, customs and tariffs policy of the Ministry of Finances of Russia;
• Dmitry Kazansky, Deputy Chief of Department of Extrajudicial Audit of the FTS of Russia;
• In-house counsel of Gazprom, Mechel, RZhD, MTS and other ventures.

Advocate Maxim Rovinskiy, Head of the Tax and Customs Law Practice of the Law Firm "YUST", also took part in the discussion of the meeting’s issues.

The meeting’s participants discussed the utility of the latest legislative initiatives in the taxation sphere. They commented on the idea to fix in the legislation the sanctions to be imposed on the tax authorities for delays in the consideration of the taxpayers’ complaints.

The norms on the time limits for consideration of the complaints are currently in part declarative. Tax authorities incur no liability for late consideration of a taxpayer’s complaint. And if delays occur, uncertainty arises among the taxpayers regarding the amount of the debts, time limits for paying penalties, fines etc. Sergey Razgulin, representative of the Ministry of Finances, confirmed that the financial institution understands the topicality of the problem and is open for dialogue.

In the course of the meeting, the experts shared their views on creation of efficient legal mechanisms, which would allow suspending the decisions and requirements of the tax authorities. This may be useful if a company, which is an honest taxpayer, is going to contest the additionally charged taxes in a higher inspectorate or in a court of arbitration. The criteria of honest taxpayers, to whom such right may be granted, will be elaborated at the subsequent meeting of the Workforce. The lawyers as well as the officials stressed the importance of balancing private and public interests in this matter.

Ekaterina Kuznetsova, Director of Tax Administration of AFK “Sistema” OJSC, made suggestions, which were avidly discussed. She pointed out the following gap in the tax legislation: the TCRF does not specify what value of the property received by the taxpayer-shareholder (member, stockholder) of a dissolved organization should be taken into account for tax purposes. The members of the Workforce meeting elaborated that similar problem arises, when property is obtained in the course of leaving a limited liability company, and shared other observations. Maxim Rovinskiy agreed that said problem frequently appears in practice. According to him, the regulation of the matter should take into account that the taxpayer’s income resulting from said operations is calculated, according to clause 2 of Article 277 of the TCRF, on the basis of the market value of the property received. Hence, it should be accounted for the taxation purposes at that same value.

Besides, Ekaterina Kuznetsova addressed the problem, which arises from a possible wide interpretation of the norm included in Article 283 of the TCRF by the Federal Law No. 229-FZ dated 27.07.2010. According to that norm, the possibility to transfer the losses for the future for the purposes of income tax payment “does not include the losses borne by the taxpayer during the period of taxation of his income at 0 per cent rate”. The members of the meeting agreed that the problem needed to be resolved not only at the level of interpretation by the Ministry of Finances of Russia, but also at the legislative level.

The next meeting of the Workforce of improving the tax administration will occur in June of 2013. The exact date will be communicated additionally.