26.01.07

On 25 January 2007 the government officially began consideration of amendments to legislation (second part of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation) which provide for a range of tax relief measures for companies working in the IT sphere. The civil servants from the Ministry of Finance who developed the amendments intend them to create favorable conditions for the development of innovative activity. As was previously forecast, amendments will be made to the Tax Code to exempt services which transmit and provide patents and licenses connected with intellectual property related to the development of new products from VAT. Organizations working in R&D will be given the right to apply a special coefficient expediting the amortization of equipment used in scientific research. It is also planned to introduce amendments to the Tax Code by extending the list of expenses for which enterprises using the simplified system of tax assessment (USN) can reduce their payments.

This list will include scientific research and patenting expenses. Finally, the Ministry of Finance proposes to extend the list of scientific foundations which will be permitted to give companies money. Profit tax will not be levied on this money. In accordance with the Ministry of Finance's proposal, the amendments will come into force on 1 January 2008. The government believes that the new tax assessment laws should make it possible to create new stimuli for investment in the IT sphere. The materials prepared for the parliamentary sitting note that if these tax breaks had come into force in 2007, scientific organizations would have been able to save 5.62 billion roubles. Those active in this sphere were counting on more: above all, they were waiting for a reduction in the Unified Social Tax. The authors of the amendment had proposed a reduction in the Unified Social Tax to 15.5%; the Ministry of Finance, however, did not agree to this.

Source: from material from the newspaper "Biznes"