30.01.07

The law "On the Simplified Declaration of Income for Natural Persons," better known as "The Tax Amnesty Law," comes into force from 1 March, 2007. The initial reserve with which this document was greeted in business circles is becoming openly negative.

Readers are reminded of the essentials of the tax amnesty: any citizen, who did not previously pay taxes, will be able to do this by declaring a sum and paying 13 percent of this sum to the treasury. The citizen is not obliged to disclose the source of the money. It will function as follows: Citizens will be permitted to pay a 13 percent tax on any previously undeclared income to be transferred via any bank to the treasury account. This is regardless of the tax scale which may have been previously applied to the sum. The transfer receipt acts as a document confirming that the citizen's account with the treasury is settled, and that s/he cannot be held accountable as being in debt to the state. 

Attention should be drawn to the fact that not every citizen will be able to settle accounts with the government and "sleep peacefully." The framework of this law does not necessarily provide amnesty; the law will not be extended to natural persons who are guilty of crimes detailed in Article 198 of the Criminal Code, and whose guilt has been established by the sentence of a court which has already been applied. In other words, a defendant who has already been punished for a tax infringement and who has concealed other tax crimes, but has not yet been proven guilty of the other crimes will not be permitted to forestall justice by making use of this law. In spite of its proclaimed simplicity, businesses - which are the target audience - remain unsatisfied by the law.

Business representatives say, "The ideology is correct, but the implementation leaves something to be desired." In spite of the amendments which have been made, the version of the law currently in force does not encourage transparency. Moreover, by offering an amnesty to employees, the law will hit employers which have previously paid "grey" or "black" salaries. In criticizing the law, representatives of the business community also noted that an amnesty for infringements of currency laws should have been included. After all, if the receipt of finances has violated tax law, and those finances are then converted to foreign currency and taken out of the country, several violations have been committed. Naturally, businesses are worried that they could be held accountable for additional violations such as infringements of customs law, currency law, or the rules governing business activity.

Source: From material from the newspaper "Rossiiskaya Gazeta"