Cases

• Employee involved

  Alexey Stanchin

• Process description

  The tax authority issued a decision to hold a company liable for an offense based on the results of an on-site tax audit. The Inspectorate sent the taxpayer a demand for payment of debts amounting to 19.6 million roubles.

• Result

  On behalf of the taxpayer, Tax Compliance consultants applied for installment payment for 6 months in equal installments. The application for installment payment was submitted as soon as possible after receiving the demand for payment of the debt. As a result, the Inspectorate granted installment payment for 6 months.

• Employees involved

  Mikhail Begunov, Anastasia Arzhanova, Nikita Zharov

• Process description

  A client paid royalties to a foreign parent company, a resident of the Republic of Cyprus, for the use of a trademark in the territory of the Russian Federation. When paying the remuneration, the client applied the reduced withholding tax rate provided for by the SIDN with Cyprus. Based on the results of the pre-check analysis, the tax authority pointed out the absence of (1) the business purpose of the trademark rights transfer transaction and (2) the foreign parent company's status as the actual recipient of income.

• Result

  In the course of the project, the Tax Compliance team: Prepared a legal position in which it substantiated the existence of (1) the business purpose of the transaction and (2) the status of the foreign parent company as the actual recipient of income. Developed proposals on business restructuring within the Group in order to improve the efficiency of the Group's financial and business operations with the participation of a foreign trademark holder.

Tax Compliance attorneys advised a petroleum products company on the tax risks of calculating and paying excise tax on petroleum products over a three-year period.

• Process description

  The Client was under the threat of a field tax audit and additional tax charges if the company did not voluntarily submit revised excise tax returns and did not pay the tax and penalties. The lawyers evaluated the materials of tax authorities, available judicial practice, and clarifications of the Ministry of Finance and Federal Tax Service. As the result our lawyers reasoned to the Client that voluntary tax payment is more efficient for the Client than an on-site tax audit and further litigation in courts, including the fact that the amount of taxes to be paid voluntarily would be considerably smaller. Tax Compliance attorneys developed a new approach to the application of the letter of the Ministry of Finance and prepared a legal position to substantiate the advisability of independent calculation of tax liabilities of the Client on excise taxes and their voluntary payment to the budget, due to changes in the approach of the Russian Federal Tax Service in terms of charging excise taxes when mixing oil products, as well as the current negative judicial practice on this topic.

• Result

  The client prepared a refined tax return and completed the tax calculations. We managed to avoid penalties and fines of more than 190 million rubles.

• Employees involved

  Anastasia Arzhanova, Alexey Stanchin

• Process description

  The tax authority, as part of an on-site tax audit, came to the conclusion that organisations that had attracted unfair counterparties had been artificially included. In particular, the tax authority believed that: (1) the nature of the activities of the counterparty's group of companies constituted a scheme of "splitting" the business aimed at unjustified reduction of the tax burden. In connection with the above, the taxpayer was offered counterarguments to the arguments of the tax authority and evidence substantiating the business purpose of the acquisition of business entities (pharmacies) by the Client's shareholders and the independence of their business activities. The Tax Compliance team represents the Client's interests in the court of first instance in a dispute with the tax inspectorate. Within the framework of the court dispute, Tax Compliance lawyers: (1) prepared a legal position (2) represented the Company's interests within the court hearings in the court of first instance, (3) filed interim measures in the form of suspension of the tax authority's decision until the court decision came into force.

• Result

  The court accepted the taxpayer's arguments. As a result of the project implementation, tax claims in the amount of 698 million rubles were reduced to 188 million rubles, which is 73% of the initial requirement of the tax authority.

• Employees involved

  Mikhail Begunov, Alexander Dmitriev

• Process description

  The tax authority, as part of its pre-inspection analysis of a major Russian bank, concluded that there was no real relationship with a number of agents, indicating that certain companies had received bank guarantees of their participation. The need to clarify tax liabilities amounted to RUB 90 million.

• Result

  As part of legal defense and support of the field tax audit, the TC team developed and submitted to the tax authority a legal position confirming the reality of business transactions between the bank and agents, in particular, an exhaustive set of documents was prepared to confirm the reality of business transactions, and attorney's surveys were provided. The implementation of the project made it possible to reduce the amount of income tax arrears several times.