Tax Compliance held a session at the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum. The key points of the discussion are in the report by Pravo.ru and on our website.

Mikhail Begunov, Managing Partner of Tax Compliance, began the discussion by pointing out the key areas of the forthcoming innovations and invited the participants to reveal the main points of concern to taxpayers. 

The session included the position of business on the issues of profit tax increase and federal investment deduction. Oksana Adyan, Deputy Global CFO for M&A, Corporate Structuring and Taxes of Rust Group, noted that the abolition of export duty is positive for business even against the background of an increase in the income tax rate. The speaker also suggested that in order to support export efficiency, businesses should be allowed to deduct marketing expenses.

Head of the Department of Methodology and Internal Control «IDS Borjomi» Ekaterina Shkvarenko reminded that the parameters of investment deduction will be known tentatively by the second reading of the bill with amendments to the Tax Code, and not all companies will be able to count on it. The expert expects that the legislator will meet the business and will not identify the deduction by industry. The purpose of the deduction is to encourage investors, so it makes sense to encourage those efficient entrepreneurs who make a profit by investing.

Konstantin Asabin, Head of Tax Practice at Alfa Capital Management Company, spoke about the main tax changes in terms of personal income tax: the introduction of a general progressive tax scale, the addition of a system of social and standard deductions. Having analyzed the future changes in this part, the expert noted that the new tax conditions should not encourage residents to move and change residency, but should attract them to become closer to taxpayers. 

In the final part of the discussion the participants discussed one of the important initiatives for business - amnesty for «splitting». Pavel Ledovskoy, head of tax practice, lawyer of the Moscow Bar Association «Dictatorship of the Law» noted that at the moment the criteria of amnesty and in what form the voluntary refusal from splitting will be realized are not quite clear. In this regard, the legislator needs to develop a methodology for amnesty for businessmen. 

Additional clarifications from the Federal Tax Service on the application of the amnesty are awaited by Tax Compliance partner, attorney Andrey Solomyanyi. Our expert pointed out that the entry into force of this mechanism will encourage businesses to think about switching to a different system of business processes.