Publications

In the cur­rent eco­nom­ic and polit­ic­al en­vir­on­ment, and tak­ing in­to ac­count the lim­it­a­tions now im­posed by many for­eign banks with re­spect to the trans­fer of funds to Rus­sia, we ex­pect that for­eign pro­viders of elec­tron­ic ser­vices may face prac­tic­al dif­fi­culties with pay­ing VAT to the Rus­si­an budget for the first quarter of 2022. Ac­cord­ing to the ap­plic­able le­gis­la­tion, the tax is due to be paid on or be­fore 25 April 2022.Ac­cord­ing to the in­form­a­tion at our dis­pos­al, In­ter­re­gion­al tax in­spec­tion No. 7 in charge of the elec­tron­ic ser­vices’ agenda is col­lect­ing in­form­a­tion from tax­pay­ers on ex­pec­ted prob­lems with pay­ments with a view to provid­ing tech­nic­al solu­tions.That be­ing said, for­eign pro­viders of elec­tron­ic ser­vices in Rus­sia should con­firm with their for­eign banks in ad­vance wheth­er it is pos­sible to pay VAT to the Rus­si­an budget in due time. Any prob­lems iden­ti­fied may be re­por­ted to the In­ter­re­gion­al tax in­spec­tion No.7 via the feed­back form in the tax­pay­er’s on­line ac­count.For­eign pro­viders of elec­tron­ic ser­vices may also dis­cuss with their Rus­si­an cus­tom­ers the VAT pay­ment mech­an­ism for the flows. For ex­ample, the Rus­si­an cus­tom­er may choose to vol­un­tar­ily with­hold the VAT due from the pay­ment made to the for­eign pro­vider, us­ing the mech­an­ism provided in the let­ter* of the Fed­er­al Tax ser­vice dated 24.04.2019 No. СД-4-3/7937@. However, this ap­proach may be ap­plied only in re­spect of fu­ture pay­ments to the for­eign pro­viders.* In Rus­si­an

On 5 March 2022, the Rus­si­an Pres­id­ent signed De­cree* No. 95 “On the Tem­por­ary Pro­ced­ure for Dis­charge of Ob­lig­a­tions to Cer­tain For­eign Cred­it­ors” (“De­cree No. 95”), which es­tab­lishes a tem­por­ary pro­ced­ure for dis­char­ging cer­tain fin­an­cial ob­lig­a­tions.Pro­ced­ure for dis­char­ging ob­lig­a­tionsFrom 5 March 2022, the Rus­si­an Fed­er­a­tion, con­stitu­ent en­tit­ies of the Rus­si­an Fed­er­a­tion, mu­ni­cip­al­it­ies and res­id­ents (“Debt­ors”) must dis­charge their ob­lig­a­tions un­der loans and fin­an­cial in­stru­ments to for­eign per­sons (and their con­trolled per­sons, ex­cept for those re­gistered in Rus­sia) con­nec­ted with states, which, with­in the mean­ing of Rus­si­an law, are com­mit­ting “un­friendly acts” against the Rus­si­an Fed­er­a­tion and Rus­si­an per­sons (“Re­stric­ted Cred­it­ors”), as well as cer­tain oth­er cred­it­ors, in ac­cord­ance with De­cree No. 95. The above­men­tioned states are lis­ted in Rus­si­an Gov­ern­ment Or­der* No. 430-r dated 5 March 2022 (“States”). They in­clude, in par­tic­u­lar, the EU mem­ber states, US, Canada, UK, Switzer­land and Ja­pan.This pro­ced­ure ap­plies to ob­lig­a­tions if their amount ex­ceeds: (i) RUB 10m per cal­en­dar month, or (ii) the for­eign cur­rency equi­val­ent of that amount at the of­fi­cial ex­change rate fixed by the Cent­ral Bank of Rus­sia (“CBR”) on the first day of each month.De­cree No. 95 also ap­plies to the dis­charge by Rus­si­an leg­al en­tit­ies of their ob­lig­a­tions re­lated to the is­su­ance by for­eign en­tit­ies of for­eign is­sue-grade se­cur­it­ies (Euro­bonds and de­pos­it­ary re­ceipts).Dis­charge of ob­lig­a­tions to Re­stric­ted Cred­it­or­sIn or­der to make pay­ments to Re­stric­ted Cred­it­ors, a Debt­or must ap­ply to open a spe­cial type “S” rouble ac­count in the name of a Re­stric­ted Cred­it­or (or a for­eign nom­in­al hold­er). The ap­plic­a­tion must be sub­mit­ted to a Rus­si­an cred­it in­sti­tu­tion or, in the case of se­cur­it­ies is­su­ance, to a cent­ral se­cur­it­ies de­pos­it­ory. Type “S” ac­counts also in­clude depo ac­counts opened in the name of either a Re­stric­ted Cred­it­or or a for­eign nom­in­al hold­er be­fore 5 March 2022.A type “S” ac­count may be a bank ac­count, spe­cial broker­age ac­count, clear­ing bank ac­count, depo ac­count or clear­ing depo ac­count. The con­di­tions of us­ing type “S” ac­counts are set out in the Res­ol­u­tion of the CBR’s Board of Dir­ect­ors dated 18 March 2022* (“Res­ol­u­tion”).Ex­cept for a num­ber of spe­cif­ic cases es­tab­lished by the Res­ol­u­tion, a Re­stric­ted Cred­it­or should sub­mit an ap­plic­a­tion for us­ing funds cred­ited to a type “S” ac­count. The ap­plic­a­tion must be sub­mit­ted in the man­ner pre­scribed by the CBR (where ob­lig­a­tions are per­formed by Rus­si­an fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions) or by the Rus­si­an Min­istry of Fin­ance (in the case of per­form­ance by any oth­er Debt­or).Dis­charge of ob­lig­a­tions to oth­er cred­it­or­sIn cer­tain cases, De­cree No. 95 also ap­plies to the dis­charge of ob­lig­a­tions to oth­er cred­it­ors.Firstly, ob­lig­a­tions to for­eign cred­it­ors that are not Re­stric­ted Cred­it­ors can be dis­charged in roubles in the amount of the rouble equi­val­ent cal­cu­lated at the CBR of­fi­cial ex­change rate as of the pay­ment date. Based on the word­ing of para­graph 1 of De­cree No. 95, the for­eign cred­it­ors that are not Re­stric­ted Cred­it­ors may in­clude: (i) for­eign per­sons not con­nec­ted with the States or their con­trolled per­sons, and (ii) Rus­si­an en­tit­ies con­trolled by for­eign per­sons con­nec­ted with the States. The CBR’s un­of­fi­cial cla­ri­fic­a­tions, which use the terms “cred­it­ors that are Rus­si­an res­id­ents” and “cred­it­ors from coun­tries that have not joined the sanc­tions against Rus­sia”, do not con­tain more de­tailed in­ter­pret­a­tions.Secondly, ob­lig­a­tions to res­id­ents whose se­cur­it­ies are held in depo ac­counts with Rus­si­an de­pos­it­or­ies are dis­charged by trans­fer­ring funds in roubles to the cred­it­or’s ac­count (without us­ing type “S” ac­counts) in the amount of the rouble equi­val­ent cal­cu­lated at the CBR of­fi­cial ex­change rate as of the pay­ment date.Thirdly, ob­lig­a­tions to a for­eign nom­in­al hold­er are dis­charged by trans­fer­ring funds in roubles to a for­eign nom­in­al hold­er’s type “S” ac­count opened with a Rus­si­an de­pos­it­ory in the amount of the rouble equi­val­ent cal­cu­lated at the CBR of­fi­cial ex­change rate as of the pay­ment date. Fur­ther trans­fers to the se­cur­it­ies hold­ers that are Re­stric­ted Cred­it­ors are made in the amount due un­der the terms of the se­cur­it­ies is­su­ance (less the pay­ments to res­id­ents whose se­cur­it­ies are held in Rus­si­an de­pos­it­or­ies and for­eign cred­it­ors oth­er than the Re­stric­ted Cred­it­ors).The rel­ev­ant pro­vi­sions of De­cree No. 95 may be aimed at es­tab­lish­ing a man­dat­ory pro­ced­ure for dis­char­ging the reg­u­lated ob­lig­a­tions to oth­er cred­it­ors solely in the ways de­scribed above (ir­re­spect­ive of any pro­vi­sions to the con­trary in the con­tract or the ap­plic­able law). However, a fi­nal po­s­i­tion on this is­sue can be de­term­ined after of­fi­cial cla­ri­fic­a­tions are pub­lished.Ob­lig­a­tions as­signed by Re­stric­ted Cred­it­or­s­De­cree No. 95 also ap­plies to the dis­charge by the Debt­ors of ob­lig­a­tions, which have been as­signed by Re­stric­ted Cred­it­ors to res­id­ent cred­it­ors and for­eign cred­it­ors who are not Re­stric­ted Cred­it­ors after 1 March 2022 or in cer­tain cases, such as for cred­it in­sti­tu­tions sub­ject to the States’ sanc­tions*, oth­er date de­term­ined by the CBR’s Board of Dir­ect­ors.The as­sign­ment is men­tioned in De­cree No. 95 sep­ar­ately from the spe­cif­ic grounds for the dis­charge of ob­lig­a­tions to cred­it­ors oth­er than the Re­stric­ted Cred­it­ors. As a res­ult, un­til au­thor­it­ies give any fur­ther cla­ri­fic­a­tions, pro­vi­sions in con­nec­tion with as­sign­ments may be in­ter­preted to fall with­in the gen­er­al pro­ced­ure for dis­char­ging ob­lig­a­tions to Re­stric­ted Cred­it­ors.Oth­er pro­ced­ures for dis­char­ging ob­lig­a­tion­sThe CBR (if ob­lig­a­tions are per­formed by Rus­si­an fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions) or the Min­istry of Fin­ance (in oth­er cases) may de­term­ine oth­er pro­ced­ures for dis­char­ging ob­lig­a­tions un­der loans and fin­an­cial in­stru­ments. Un­til then, a per­mit to that ef­fect may be is­sued by the CBR or the Min­istry of Fin­ance, re­spect­ively. As far as we are aware, Rus­si­an au­thor­it­ies have already com­menced is­su­ing such per­mits at the re­quest of a num­ber of Rus­si­an com­pan­ies.Ex­emp­tions for per­sons con­trolled by Rus­si­an be­ne­fi­ciar­ies­De­cree No. 95 also es­tab­lishes ex­emp­tions from the concept of for­eign per­sons con­nec­ted with States, as defined in the Rus­si­an Pres­id­ent’s De­cree* No. 81 “On Ad­di­tion­al Tem­por­ary Eco­nom­ic Meas­ures to En­sure the Fin­an­cial Sta­bil­ity of the Rus­si­an Fed­er­a­tion” dated 1 March 2022 (“De­cree No. 81”). In par­tic­u­lar, De­cree No. 81 does not ap­ply to mak­ing trans­ac­tions with such per­sons if: (i) they are con­trolled by Rus­si­an be­ne­fi­ciar­ies, in­clud­ing through for­eign per­sons, and (ii) such con­trol is dis­closed to Rus­si­an tax au­thor­it­ies.We will con­tin­ue to mon­it­or these de­vel­op­ments and keep you in­formed of any fur­ther changes.* In Rus­si­an

On 18 March 2022, the Cent­ral Bank of the Rus­si­an Fed­er­a­tion (“CBR”) is­sued a per­mit to in­sur­ance mar­ket par­ti­cipants (“Per­mis­sion”) in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2 of Art­icle 3 of Law No. 55-FZ*. In ac­cord­ance with the Per­mis­sion, in­sur­ance com­pan­ies and mu­tu­al in­sur­ance as­so­ci­ations may per­form a num­ber of op­er­a­tions, which were pre­vi­ously pro­hib­ited by this Law. The Per­mis­sion was sent to Rus­si­an in­sur­ance mar­ket par­ti­cipants through their per­son­al ac­counts on the CBR’s web­site and is in force un­til 31 Decem­ber 2022 (in­clus­ive).In ac­cord­ance with the Per­mis­sion, Rus­si­an in­surers are now al­lowed to carry out:op­er­a­tions with­in in­ter­na­tion­al mo­tor vehicle third-party li­ab­il­ity in­sur­ance schemes in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 31 of Fed­er­al Law No. 40-FZ “On man­dat­ory mo­tor third party li­ab­il­ity in­sur­ance” dated 25 April 2002, in­clud­ing re­in­sur­ance, pay­ment of premi­ums and claims un­der re­in­sur­ance con­tracts; an­d­op­er­a­tions in con­nec­tion with re­in­sur­ance and pay­ments of premi­ums and claims (for dir­ect policies for cargo in­sur­ance con­tracts of goods im­por­ted in­to Rus­sia or re­lated fin­an­cial risks). Fur­ther­more, the Per­mis­sion al­lows in­sur­ance com­pan­ies and mu­tu­al in­sur­ance so­ci­et­ies to enter in­to trans­ac­tions with Rus­si­an in­surers and in­sur­ance brokers con­trolled by the res­id­ents of “un­friendly” states, and to make pay­ments in con­nec­tion with such trans­ac­tions.Fi­nally, the Per­mis­sion al­lows com­pan­ies to enter in­to any trans­ac­tions with and to make any pay­ments to any in­surers and in­sur­ance brokers, ex­cept for en­ter­ing in­to con­tracts or mak­ing pay­ments for in­sur­ance and re­in­sur­ance pur­poses.Co-au­thored by Max­im Telushkin, Paralegal in Bank­ing & Fin­ance.* In Rus­si­an

The Rus­si­an Fed­er­al Tax Ser­vice has, for the first time, ac­know­ledged that a loss-mak­ing trans­ac­tion may still be con­sidered arm’s-length for trans­fer pri­cing pur­poses in Rus­sia in its let­ter No. ShYu-4-13/2724@* dated 5 March 2022 (the “Let­ter”).Ac­cord­ing to the Let­ter, in the cur­rent eco­nom­ic en­vir­on­ment, where the ap­plic­able sanc­tions in­tro­duced at the US and EU level may in­flu­ence the eco­nom­ic con­di­tions of com­mer­cial trans­ac­tions, Rus­si­an tax­pay­ers may be forced to sell their goods pro­duced for ex­port­a­tion abroad with a dis­count, which may in cer­tain cases lead to a loss res­ult­ing from such trans­ac­tions.This be­ing said, the Fed­er­al Tax Ser­vice should con­sider that these cir­cum­stances may in­flu­ence the pri­cing ap­plied in, and the res­ults of such trans­ac­tions, when con­duct­ing the trans­fer-pri­cing con­trol over such trans­ac­tions and when con­sid­er­ing ap­plic­a­tions for ad­vance price agree­ments filed by tax­pay­ers.Com­ment­sAl­though Rus­si­an tax au­thor­it­ies have his­tor­ic­ally pro­nounced their in­ten­tion to con­sider the eco­nom­ic cir­cum­stances of the trans­ac­tions per­formed when con­duct­ing trans­fer-pri­cing audits, they have nev­er be­fore in prac­tice con­firmed the pos­sib­il­ity of re­cog­nising loss-mak­ing trans­ac­tions as per­formed in com­pli­ance with trans­fer-pri­cing re­quire­ments.This was not even the case dur­ing the COV­ID-19 pan­dem­ic, when tax au­thor­it­ies sug­ges­ted that tax­pay­ers ap­ply the ad­just­ments aimed at en­sur­ing the com­par­ab­il­ity of the com­mer­cial terms of tested trans­ac­tions, which was for­mu­lated rather vaguely in Rus­si­an tax le­gis­la­tion.However, this new ini­ti­at­ive, al­though rep­res­ent­ing a pos­it­ive shift in the per­cep­tion of Rus­si­an tax au­thor­it­ies, still leaves a vast num­ber of open ques­tions to be cla­ri­fied.For ex­ample, it is not clear what eco­nom­ic cir­cum­stances Rus­si­an tax au­thor­it­ies will ac­tu­ally con­sider when as­sess­ing the com­pli­ance of the trans­ac­tion with the arm’s-length prin­ciples. In prac­tice, ac­com­pa­ny­ing eco­nom­ic con­sequences of the sanc­tions, such as ex­change-rate volat­il­ity or tem­por­ary sus­pen­sion of cer­tain busi­nesses in Rus­sia, may have even stronger in­flu­ence on the res­ults of the com­mer­cial trans­ac­tions than the im­me­di­ate re­stric­tions in­tro­duced as part of the sanc­tions pack­ages.Moreover, the Let­ter ex­pli­citly ad­dresses the tax­pay­ers en­gaged in ex­port­a­tion of the goods pro­duced, while cur­rent eco­nom­ic con­di­tions will likely in­flu­ence the prices charged in and the res­ults of vari­ous types of trans­ac­tions per­formed in Rus­sia, in­clud­ing im­port­a­tion of goods to Rus­sia, pro­vi­sion of works and ser­vices, trans­ac­tions with in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­erty, etc. It is un­clear wheth­er sim­il­ar ap­proaches would ul­ti­mately be ap­plic­able to a wider range of cross-bor­der trans­ac­tions, fall­ing un­der trans­fer-pri­cing con­trol.Fi­nally, the Let­ter does not ad­dress the pos­sib­il­ity of per­form­ing cross-bor­der ad­just­ments aimed at re­duc­tion of tax pay­able to the Rus­si­an budget, cur­rently pro­hib­ited un­der the le­gis­la­tion in force. However, such ad­just­ments may in fact be re­quired in the cur­rent con­di­tions, es­pe­cially in cases when the Rus­si­an parties to the con­trolled trans­ac­tions hold en­tre­pren­eur­i­al status, and are thus gen­er­ally bound by the ob­lig­a­tion to en­sure arm’s-length prof­it­ab­il­ity to their routine coun­ter­parties.Our tax team will be closely mon­it­or­ing fur­ther anti-crisis de­vel­op­ments in the trans­fer pri­cing do­main and will re­port on any such changes.* In Rus­si­an

There are plans to:pro­hib­it man­u­fac­tur­ers and dis­trib­ut­ors of med­ic­al devices from leav­ing the Rus­si­an mar­ket without at least six months pri­or no­tice; an­dper­mit the sale of for­eign medi­cines in their ori­gin­al pack­ages.Exit no­tice for man­u­fac­tur­ers and dis­trib­ut­ors of med­ic­al devicesThe Rus­si­an gov­ern­ment has de­veloped and in­tro­duced to the State Duma a bill* to amend the laws “On the ba­sics of pub­lic health pro­tec­tion in the Rus­si­an Fed­er­a­tion”, “On the cir­cu­la­tion of medi­cines” and “On the con­tract sys­tem in the pro­cure­ment of goods, works, ser­vices for state and mu­ni­cip­al needs”. To re­duce the risk of un­avail­ab­il­ity of med­ic­al devices and the threat to the life and health of cit­izens (in­clud­ing due to un­timely pro­vi­sion of med­ic­al care), there are plans to pro­hib­it man­u­fac­tur­ers and dis­trib­ut­ors of med­ic­al devices from sus­pend­ing or ter­min­at­ing the pro­duc­tion of med­ic­al devices or their im­port in­to Rus­sia without giv­ing the Rus­si­an Min­istry of Health no less than six months’ no­tice.Sale of for­eign medi­cines in their ori­gin­al pack­agesIt is pro­posed to ac­cel­er­ate the pro­cess of put­ting newly-re­gistered medi­cines on the Rus­si­an mar­ket. In case of their short­age (or the risk of short­age) while sanc­tions are in place, it will be pos­sible to im­port medi­cines, put them on the mar­ket and use them in Rus­sia in the ori­gin­al (i.e. for­eign) pack­aging without a Rus­si­an trans­la­tion.The rel­ev­ant bill* has already passed first read­ing and, if ad­op­ted, will come in­to force on the date of its of­fi­cial pub­lic­a­tion. Giv­en the prompt­ness of the ad­op­tion of counter-sanc­tions in Rus­sia, the ad­op­tion of this law can be ex­pec­ted in the com­ing days.* In Rus­si­an

On 14 March 2022, a new law was pub­lished as a part of the Rus­si­an re­sponse to sanc­tions im­posed by for­eign states. Law No. 55-FZ* af­fects a num­ber of areas in­clud­ing in­sur­ance and re­in­sur­ance.Para­graph 2 of Art­icle 3 of the Law provides that, un­til 31 Decem­ber 2022, Rus­si­an in­surers can­not enter in­to con­tracts with in­surers, re­in­surers and in­sur­ance brokers res­id­ent in un­friendly states, and with in­surers, re­in­surers and in­sur­ance brokers con­trolled by res­id­ents of un­friendly states. Ac­cord­ing to Pres­id­en­tial De­cree No. 95* dated 5 March 2022 and Gov­ern­ment Res­ol­u­tion No. 430-r* dated 5 March 2022, the list of un­friendly states in­cludes the US, EU, UK, Aus­tralia, Canada, Ja­pan and a num­ber of oth­er coun­tries.The Law fur­ther provides that Rus­si­an in­surers can­not trans­fer money to any of the above en­tit­ies un­der con­tracts con­cluded pri­or to the ef­fect­ive date of the Law (14 March 2022). Such trans­fers as well as new con­tracts can only be made in ex­cep­tion­al cases sub­ject to a Cent­ral Bank per­mit. By ac­ci­dent or not, Rus­si­an in­sur­ance com­pan­ies, re­in­sur­ance com­pan­ies and brokers con­trolled by for­eign in­vestors are also sub­ject to this ban.There could be the fol­low­ing im­plic­a­tions for in­surers in­clud­ing Rus­si­an in­surers and re­in­surers con­trolled by for­eign in­vestors:They will not be able to place re­in­sur­ance through brokers based in or con­trolled by res­id­ents of un­friendly states or Rus­si­an sub­si­di­ar­ies of in­ter­na­tion­al brokers even if the risk ends up in a friendly state.Rus­si­an in­surers con­trolled by res­id­ents of un­friendly states will be ad­di­tion­ally hit by the in­ab­il­ity to ac­cept new re­in­sur­ance busi­ness from Rus­si­an in­surers.As it will not be pos­sible to trans­fer any re­in­sur­ance premi­ums to or by these “un­friendly” in­surers, re­in­surers and brokers, ex­ist­ing re­in­sur­ance policies could be ter­min­ated leav­ing the in­sureds without suf­fi­cient in­sur­ance and re­in­sur­ance pro­tec­tion.Also, trans­fers of re­in­sur­ance or ret­ro­ces­sion share of any loss to these en­tit­ies would not be pos­sible.Cus­tom­ers of Rus­si­an in­sur­ance com­pan­ies could also face neg­at­ive con­sequences, such as:An in­surer may re­fuse to enter in­to an in­sur­ance con­tract be­cause its own re­ten­tion lim­its will be ex­ceeded and it will not be able to trans­fer the risk abroad or to a Rus­si­an sub­si­di­ary of a for­eign “un­friendly” in­surer.New risks as­sumed by Rus­si­an in­surers can­not be trans­ferred un­der ex­ist­ing treat­ies to for­eign “un­friendly” in­surers or their Rus­si­an sub­si­di­ar­ies (no re­in­sur­ance premi­ums can be paid), the risks will re­main on their own re­ten­tion or will be trans­ferred to com­pan­ies with low rat­ings. If an in­sured event oc­curs, there is a high risk of bank­ruptcy for Rus­si­an in­surers as they are un­able to trans­fer the risk to highly-rated re­in­surers, there is also a high risk of not re­ceiv­ing the in­sur­ance in­dem­nity.There could be a breach of pro­vi­sions in loan agree­ments re­quir­ing in­sur­ance/re­in­sur­ance policies to be is­sued by reput­able com­pan­ies with high in­ter­na­tion­al rat­ings (tech­nic­al de­fault with all its con­sequences). Some activ­it­ies will be at risk of stop­page (e.g. air trans­port) due to in­ab­il­ity to re­in­sure high risks in for­eign com­pan­ies loc­ated in un­friendly coun­tries.The Law provides for a pos­sib­il­ity to ob­tain a spe­cial per­mit from the Cent­ral Bank “in ex­cep­tion­al cases”.  It re­mains to be seen how will­ing the Cent­ral Bank will be to is­sue them as there is no pro­ced­ure or timeline for the is­su­ance.* In Rus­si­an

On 9 March 2022, the Rus­si­an Pres­id­ent signed the Law* on the fourth stage of the cap­it­al am­nesty. Ac­cord­ing to the Law, un­der the fourth stage, in­di­vidu­als will be able to sub­mit, between 14 March 2022 and 28 Feb­ru­ary 2023, a spe­cial de­clar­a­tion re­flect­ing as­sets sub­ject to leg­al­isa­tion. The am­nesty will ap­ply to acts com­mit­ted be­fore 1 Janu­ary 2022.Cap­it­al am­nesty is the vol­un­tary de­clar­a­tion by in­di­vidu­als of their for­eign ac­counts, real es­tate, se­cur­it­ies and oth­er prop­erty held abroad. It in­volves the trans­fer of de­clared prop­erty to Rus­sia without crim­in­al, ad­min­is­trat­ive and tax li­ab­il­ity when the rel­ev­ant vi­ol­a­tions are re­lated to the de­clared prop­erty and ac­counts.Un­der the first three stages, which took place in 2015, 2017 and 2019, in­di­vidu­als were en­titled to sub­mit in­form­a­tion to the Fed­er­al Tax Ser­vice on land and oth­er im­mov­able prop­erty, vehicles, se­cur­it­ies (in­clud­ing shares), as well as par­ti­cip­at­ory in­terests and equity stakes in or­gan­isa­tions, con­trolled for­eign com­pan­ies and bank ac­counts loc­ated out­side Rus­sia that had not been de­clared be­fore.In con­trast to the pre­vi­ous stages, in­di­vidu­als will also be able to de­clare cash. Also, the word­ing “se­cur­it­ies” has been re­placed by “fin­an­cial as­sets”, al­low­ing not only shares and bonds, but also de­riv­at­ive fin­an­cial in­stru­ments (e.g. fu­tures, op­tions, etc.), to be de­clared in the fourth stage. The list of sup­port­ing doc­u­ments to be at­tached to the spe­cial de­clar­a­tion has been sup­ple­men­ted.In re­la­tion to cash, guar­an­tees will be giv­en provided that the de­clar­ant de­pos­its the cash spe­cified in the de­clar­a­tion in­to cur­rent or sav­ings ac­counts with Rus­si­an banks with­in 30 days from the date of sub­mis­sion of the de­clar­a­tion to the tax au­thor­ity.Com­ment­sThe Law does not cla­ri­fy how cash de­pos­its in­to bank ac­counts will be con­firmed. It is also un­clear wheth­er cash flow state­ments on for­eign ac­counts will be audited and wheth­er it is ne­ces­sary to have doc­u­ments to prove the trans­ac­tions re­flec­ted in them. In this re­gard, we will fol­low fur­ther de­vel­op­ments in this area and keep you in­formed of new cla­ri­fic­a­tions.Those who par­ti­cip­ated in the pre­vi­ous stages of the cap­it­al am­nesty can also par­ti­cip­ate in the fourth stage. However, the Law does not provide for re­peat de­clar­a­tions with­in a single stage (i.e. a de­clar­a­tion can be sub­mit­ted only once). As a res­ult, it is im­port­ant to ana­lyse all as­sets and as­sess the pos­sib­il­ity of de­clar­ing, guar­an­tees and risks.The CMS Rus­sia team is ready to as­sist in this field by not­ably:car­ry­ing out an as­set ana­lys­is to as­sess the feas­ib­il­ity of par­ti­cip­at­ing in the cap­it­al am­nesty (in­clud­ing wheth­er it is pos­sible to file a de­clar­a­tion, con­sequences, be­ne­fits of ob­tain­ing guar­an­tees and po­ten­tial risks);pre­par­ing a spe­cial de­clar­a­tion and re­ports for pre­vi­ous peri­ods (i.e. ODDS, 3-ND­FL);as­sist­ing with the pre­par­a­tion of a set of sup­port­ing doc­u­ments;as­sist­ing with fil­ing re­turns to the tax au­thor­it­ies.  * In Rus­si­an

From 29 Decem­ber 2021*, cer­tain cat­egor­ies of for­eign na­tion­als will have to peri­od­ic­ally un­der­go med­ic­al ex­am­in­a­tions, as well as go through one-off fin­ger­print re­gis­tra­tion and pho­to­graph­ing.Be­low you...

Start­ing from 1 Janu­ary 2019, Rus­sia has been im­ple­ment­ing a pro­gramme of “waste re­form” to rad­ic­ally change its mu­ni­cip­al waste-man­age­ment sys­tem across the coun­try. Many of the sched­uled pre­par­a­tion...

A bill that ex­pands the ap­plic­a­tion of sanc­tions by the Rus­si­an Fed­er­a­tion and spe­cifies the pro­ced­ure for their ap­plic­a­tion has been sub­mit­ted to the Rus­si­an State Duma.In par­tic­u­lar, the bill:cla­ri­fies...

From 1 Janu­ary 2021, for­eign na­tion­als will be able to enter Rus­sia with elec­tron­ic visas at bor­der con­trol posts to be spe­cified by the Rus­si­an gov­ern­ment in a sep­ar­ate doc­u­ment.Be­low you will find...

On 19 June 2020, amend­ments* to the Com­mer­cial Pro­ced­ure Code of the Rus­si­an Fed­er­a­tion came in­to force, which provide for the ex­clus­ive jur­is­dic­tion of Rus­si­an courts to con­sider dis­putes in­volving Rus­si­an...