An "Entrance" plate closes some part of the face of a tax official in the operating hall of the uniform registration office of legal entities.
Photo: Sergey Mikheev
| Other Photos |
 |
|
 |
It Will be Tax Amnesty, Not the Criminal One
Deputy Finance Minister Sergey Shatalov unveiled yesterday certain details of the tax amnesty bill elaborated by his ministry and currently considered by the president’s administration. The citizens won’t be required to transfer money to the banks of Russia and won’t be protected from criminal liability for violations of currency, customs or any other laws of the country, Shatalov pointed out.
The main thing is that the revised bill “doesn’t specify depositing funds that are subject to facilitated declaration with the bank accounts,” Sergey Shatalov, who is one of the masterminds of the document, said yesterday, November 23, 2005.
On the other hand, the bill doesn’t provide for any extended interpretation of the amnesty, Shatalov made it clear. The tax pardon will be granted to the individuals exclusively (though the entities were also discussed) and only in respect of the income revenues, which they have concealed. The price of the amnesty is 13 percent, as the Russians have been paying the income tax of exactly this rate recently.
The tricky point is that the amnesty applies only to clause 198 of the RF Criminal Code (Tax Evasion of the Individuals) and doesn’t cover a raft of other economic clauses of the Code. Therefore, as soon as Federal Tax Service informs law enforcement bodies that some person has declared $1-million worth of Russia’s or foreign assets, the officers of Interior Ministry or of Federal Security Service or the prosecutors are likely to be tempted to inquire how he/she has actually come by that money. The consequences are easily imagined.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 24, 2005
|
|
|
