ITAR-TASS - Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has instructed the government to prepare legislative amendments on taxation of companies in offshore jurisdictions if they do not share their income with Russian officials who control them. He also called for drafting legislative amendments that would make government support unavailable to such companies and would prohibit public or municipal contracts with them.
The instructions followed President Vladimir Putin’s orders of December 27, 2013, issued after his Address to the Federal Assembly (national parliament).
Over $1 trillion taken to offshore zones
Russian MPs will discuss deoffshorisation laws as priority during their spring session, Valentina Matviyenko, Chairperson of the Federation Council, upper house of parliament, said in late December.
She stressed the need for effective measures to deoffshorise the economy.
“Many experts say that more than one trillion U.S. dollars were taken to offshore zones over the past 20 years,” she said, adding that “this is a sphere that is very hard to regulate at the state level.”The Federation Council, the upper house of Russian parliament, intends to discuss de-offshorisation laws during the spring session. “Such proposals have been prepared, we corrected them taking into account the proposals put forth by the president in his Address and we will continue working on this priority topic together with the State Duma (lower house of parliament),” she said.
“There are several dozen schemes of tax, investment and corporate optimization in offshore zones. This is a whole world where one can easily hide his income and evade fair taxation,” Matviyenko said.
Matviyenko expressed confidence that the parliament would adopt a set of documents during its spring session that would improve the economic situation in the country, including by means of so-called de-offshorisation, thus increasing federal and regional budget revenues,” she said.