Defending the interests of a major generating company in a dispute over the treatment of "golden parachutes" as expenses for corporate income tax purposes.
During the tax period under audit the Company paid remuneration to employees for voluntarily agreeing to terminate an employment contract. This remuneration was included in expenses for corporate income tax purposes. The tax authority considered these expenses to be economically unjustified, which led to a tax dispute. (Project implemented by employee before joining Tax Compliance)
The legal position and calculations prepared on the basis of the emerging jurisprudence made it possible to substantiate the illegality of a significant amount of additional charges within the episode. This project was successfully implemented during the most difficult period of time when the practice on accounting of the respective payments as expenses was heterogeneous and contradictory.
Litigation defense of Russia's largest distributor of household chemicals, personal care products, perfumes, decorative cosmetics and other consumer goods.
The client petitioned the court to invalidate the tax authority's decision based on the results of the on-site tax audit, according to which he had been charged with substantial amounts of NGOs and VAT, as well as related penalties and fines in the amount of over 3 billion rubles. Most of the claims were related to expenses for logistics services, because the tax authority suspected that they were of a fictitious nature. Enforcement of this decision could have caused significant damage to the company and paralyzed its operations (given the significant amount of tax charges that could have been critical to the client's business).
Thanks to professionalism of Tax Compliance lawyers we managed to choose the right line of defense, based on which the court of the first instance partially upheld the client's claims (most of additional tax charges were declared illegal). It also set an important precedent and resulted in positive arbitration practice of annulling tax authorities' decisions. This case supported the approach according to which the taxpayer should not be held liable for the actions of third parties. According to independent experts, the dispute may be of great importance for the practice of application of Article 54.1 of the Tax Code in general and, in particular, for large taxpayers who make extensive use of the services of third-party transportation and logistics companies, such as those operating in the FMCG sector. In addition, interim measures were obtained in this dispute, which allowed the company to stay afloat until the resolution of the dispute on the merits (preventing the debit of funds from the company's accounts).
Supporting a dispute over the exclusion of production buildings of one of Russia's largest generating companies from the list of immovable property for which the tax base is determined as the cadastral value
A number of buildings of the energy company were used for purposes related to production activities, both directly and indirectly, in particular to accommodate personnel, etc. These buildings were included in the list as a result of a survey of their actual use by the regional authorities, as well as taking into account the permitted use of the land plot. (Project implemented by an employee prior to joining Tax Compliance)
In this dispute, we were able to convince the court to exclude all buildings from the list, allowing the client to achieve substantial tax savings.
Preparation of a cassation appeal against the judicial acts of the first and appellate instances in connection with the requirement to send the case for a new review
Preparation of the legal position of the cassation appeal in relation to the circumstances surrounding the refusal of the court of appeal to accept complaints from individuals brought to subsidiary liability
Andrey Solomyany
The Moscow Arbitration Court issued a ruling rejecting the taxpayer's claims to invalidate a non-normative legal act of the tax authority. In its reasoning, the court concluded that a number of individuals were involved in the organization, as well as the creation by them of a "scheme" of tax evasion by the company. Subsequently, the above conclusions of the court served as the basis for the tax authority to apply to the court for bringing the individuals to subsidiary liability. On the basis of the circumstances described by the court of first instance, the physical persons have prepared and sent to the court an appeal in rebuttal of the conclusions of the court of first instance. The court of appeal refused to consider the appeal of individuals and terminated proceedings on them motivating its determination by the fact that the appealed judicial act does not directly affect the legal rights of the appellant and does not impose on it unlawful duties.
The individuals filed a cassation appeal in which they disclosed the circumstances that affected the court's ruling to bring them to subsidiary liability based on the judicial act of the court of first instance. Based on the results of consideration of the cassation appeal, the court sent the case for a new review to the court of appellate instance. The court found that the findings of the trial court affected their legal rights by virtue of their subsidiary liability under another court case.
Representing a major distributor in court on the issue of interim measures and suspension of the tax authority's decision
Mikhail Begunov
The client, with the support of Tax Compliance, applied to court for suspension of the tax authority's decision based on the results of an on-site tax audit. Enforcement of that decision could have caused considerable damage to the company and paralyzed its activity, taking into consideration the substantial amount of tax charges that could have been critical for the client's business.
We managed to work out a convincing legal position, based on which the court took interim measures. Representatives of the tax authority appealed the interim measures, but thanks to the efforts of our lawyers the court ruling was upheld, despite the fact that according to statistics less than 37% of applications for interim measures are satisfied by the courts.