Russian Minister of the Interior Rashid Nurgaliev (left) with head of the Federal Migration Service Konstantin Romodanovsky
Photo: Mikhail Razuvaev
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State Will Look Closer at Migrants' Money
Konstantin Romodanovsky, head of the Federal Migration Service, and Federal Financial Monitoring Service chief Viktor Zubkov signed an agreement yesterday entitled “On Jointly Combating Illegal Immigration and Legalization of Income Earned by Criminal Means.” The agreement is promised to make rapid information sharing possible, to determine how much money is being exported and how and to prevent violations of financial rules.
The initiative for the agreement came from Rosfinmonitoring. The FMS will receive information on a foreigner's status in the country (dates of entry/exit, work eligibility), and Rosfinmonitoring will receive information on lost passports as the FMS uncovers them. Association of Russian Banks head Garegin Tosunyan commented that “For us it is necessary to know that real citizens stand behind passports, and they are not stolen… especially with mortgages.”
The agencies clearly have other concerns in mind with this agreement. Romodanovsky mentioned that there are approximately 20 million foreigners a year come to Russia, half of them illegally. Illegal aliens usually do not pay taxes, which are 30 percent on foreigners' income unless they spend six months in the country to attain the status of residents. At that time, their tax rate goes down to 13 percent, the same as for Russian citizens. Nor do migrant workers spend their wages in Russia. Rather, they send them back to their homelands. In 2006, according to the Central Bank, they sent $13 billion out of the country. Even more pressing is the problems of “diverting money flows into the shadow economy and laundering criminal income,” however, Romodanovsky said.
The FMS has been involved in many political situations. It refused Georgians work permits when Russia was in dispute with it and drafted and enforced legislation to prevent foreigner from working in open-air markets. Now money will be added to its arsenal of tool to serve the state with.
ww.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 16, 2007
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