Monitoring of the Federal Legislation dated 11.09.2008

Letter of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation No. 111-T of September 3, 2008 on Enhancing the Efficiency of Preventing Jobbery of Credit Institutions' Clients

Resident legal entities are recently transferring large amounts of money to their bank accounts opened abroad, and not infrequently to accounts thereof in Kazakhstan, Moldova, Estonia, Latvia and Cyprus.
The characteristic features of such transfers are as follows: the monthly total of transfers is more than 100 times as much as the authorised capital of a legal entity; in many cases operations on accounts of legal entities opened with Russian banks are of transit nature, the accounts used for such transfers are not taxed or are taxed at an extremely low rate.
The extent of such operations is constantly increasing, this giving rise to the assumption that they are made for the purpose of tax evasion, payment for "grey" import and laundering of illegal earnings.
In connection with this, it is necessary for credit institutions when detecting such operations to obtain on demand from resident legal entities the documents proving the sources wherefrom monetary funds have been remitted to accounts, as well as other documents proving the rights to commodities sold in the Russian Federation or other assets.
If an operation looks like jobbery, it is necessary to notify the Federal Service of Financial Monitoring of it. It is also required of regional institutions of the Central Bank of Russia to pay special attention to such operations and to those credit institutions where these operations are made on a regular basis and/or on a large scale.

Letter of the Department of Tax and Customs Tariff Policy of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation No. 03-02-07/1-358 of August 27, 2008

The Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation is charged with the duty of giving explanations in writing to taxpayers, payers of fees and tax agents in respect of application of the legislation of the Russian Federation on taxes and fees. Explanations in writing shall be only given to individuals and organisations in connection with discharge by them of the duties of, accordingly, taxpayers, payers of fees and tax agents. Taxpayers, payers of fees and tax agents shall be advised on the matters which are of interest for them on a free-of-charge basis.
The Ministry of Finance of Russia shall not consider applications for clarification (interpretation of rules, terms and concepts) of the legislation of the Russian Federation and practice of application thereof or practice of application of the Ministry's regulatory legal acts, for holding an expert examination of contracts, organisations' constituent and other documents, for assessment of specific economic situations.
At the same time, it is reported that at present the Administrative Rules of Procedure of the Federal Tax Service are in effect which provide for the exercise of the state function of informing on a free-of-charge basis (in particular in writing) taxpayers, payers of fees and tax agents about taxes and fees now in effect, the legislation on taxes and fees, and regulatory legal acts adopted under it, the procedure for calculation and payment of taxes and fees, rights and duties of taxpayers, payers of fees and tax agents, scope of authority of tax agencies and officials thereof, as well as of providing tax declarations' (estimations') forms and of explaining the procedure for filling them in.