08.06.09

The Supreme Court proposed an amendment to Article 48 of the Tax Code. The amendment would allow taxes, fines, and penalties to be collected without a court sanction. The Tax Authorities would have the ability to send orders directly to a taxpayer’s bank if payment is not made on time, whereas before court approval was needed. If there are not enough funds in the offender’s account, the remainder will be taken from the offender. If the offender does not have enough money, then personal belongings can be sold (except for those for everyday personal use) in order to make up the difference. Court officers will oversee this work.

However, citizens would have the right to challenge the Tax Authorities’ action in court.

The Supreme Court explains that the reason behind the amendment is to decrease the number of tax cases in courts, as two-thirds of them currently involve an offender who does not contest his guilt, and the number of cases keeps growing each year. Last year alone there were 3.1 million uncontested cases. Vyacheslav Lebedev, Chairman of the Supreme Court, states that more often than not, the amount of money in such cases is insignificant—usually ranging from a few kopecks to 20-50 rubles—while the cost of such a case to be heard in court is around 27,000 rubles.

But the State Duma’s Tax Committee doubts the necessity of such a law. Yuri Vasilev, Director of the Duma Taxation Committee, explains that forcible recovery of unpaid taxes in a time of economic crisis is unlikely to fix anything; therefore the amendment needs to be thoroughly discussed.

Tax experts say that citizens will now have to take their disputes on tax collections to court, but that obtaining a suspension on the collection of taxes will be near impossible. The level of protection for Russian citizens is much lower than for companies.

Lawyers are certain that the newly proposed amendments are in direct violation of the Russian Constitution, as it is unjust to deprive citizens of property without a trial. However, in the beginning of the year the Constitutional Court decided to allow pension taxes to be collected from individual businessmen without legal proceedings.

Translated by Alinga Consulting Group.

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Source: "Vedomosti"