Capital amnesty is coming to an end

The third stage of capital amnesty, which began on June 1, 2019, will end on February 29. This was the subject of our publication from 27.05.2019 «Capital amnesty has been extended».

It should be recalled, that according to the Federal Law of 08.06.2015 No.140-FZ "On the voluntary declaration of assets by individuals and accounts (deposits) at banks and on amendments to certain legislative Acts of the Russian Federation", the citizens had the opportunity to report about their accounts and deposits, property, shares in the authorized capital of domestic and foreign companies. The capital amnesty was possible only after the repatriation of accounts and enterprises, in other words after the actual return of capital to Russia.

Among new conditions appeared on the third stage are not only transfer of capital to Russia, but also business registration in special administrative regions - Russky Island in Primorsky Krai or Oktyabrsky Island in Kaliningrad. Concessional taxation is provided for the residents of these areas, the data on beneficiaries is available only for management companies, supervisory authorities and courts.

Relief from criminal responsibility was guaranteed by the relevant amendments to the Article 761 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. At the same time, these guarantees were not recorded in the Criminal Procedural Code of the Russian Federation and there were examples of using information from the voluntary declarations on capital amnesty against entrepreneurs.

The Federal Law No. 498-FZ of 27.12.2019 adopted the relevant amendments in order to harmonize the legislation on capital amnesty with the provisions of the Criminal Procedural Code of the Russian Federation.

In particular, it was stated, that submission of a special declaration and information from such declarations could not serve as a reason for initiating a criminal case.

Besides, it is prohibited to withdraw special declarations as well as documents and information attached to them during the investigative actions.

According to the Ministry of Finance, during the previous stages about 20 000 returns have been filed, however the amount of declared funds is a tax secret. The Federal Tax Service does not disclose information about the number of declarations submitted during the third stage of amnesty, but according to the Ministry of Economic Development, 12 new companies were registered in the special administrative regions since June 2019. This is confirmed by Information and Analytical system Globas, at the same time, the total authorized capital of these companies exceeds 200 billion RUB.