Entrance to the Moscow department of the Federal Tax Service
Photo: Dmitry Lebedev
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Tax Service Wants to Criminalize Inactive Companies
The Federal Tax Service intends to take steps to introduce articles in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for the prosecution of owners of “dead” legal entities that do not file tax statements and owe taxes. The tax service acknowledges that its position contradicts that of the Supreme Court of Arbitration, which ruled last December 20 that the service should liquidate dead companies with administrative procedures. The tax service objects, however, that that decision leaves the door open to a new generation of tax schemes.
The tax service is suggesting that criminal responsibility be placed on failure to file tax statements by owners of firms that owe taxes and “nonfulfilment of the requirement to liquidate a legal entity voluntarily or to make a statement to the court declaring the debtor bankrupt.” The tax service informed Interfax news agency that, as of October 1, 2006, there were 1,175,000 organizations that had failed to file tax statements for a year or more with a total tax debt of 195 billion rubles. The tax service specified that 315,000 of those companies were inactive. The rest simply did not owe any taxes.
Although the tax service opposes the Supreme Arbitration Court's decision now, Dmitry Dedov, head of the Court's legislation department, reminded Kommersant that the Federal Tax Service lobbied to have the procedure for liquidating inactive companies simplified between 2002 and 2005. At that time, the tax service argued that it would require 15 years and 30 billion rubles to liquidate the 1 million inactive companies through the courts.
“The Federal Tax Service has changed its position and is now flooding the courts with tens of thousands of applications for bankruptcy cases against absentee debtors,” Dedov complained. The tax service stated that it had filed 72,500 applications by the beginning of this year. “Property of the absentee debtor is found in only 1 percent of the cases,” Dedov added. Supreme Court of Arbitration head Anton Ivanov stated recently that he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin about the situation and “received political support.”
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Jan. 22, 2007
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