Audit secret

The Federal Law №231-FZ from July 29, 2018 introduced provisions (p. 4 of the Art. 82) into the Part One of the Tax Code of the RF on the admissibility of collection, storage and use of documents or information received from audit organizations, including individual auditors, in cases prescribed by Article 932 of the Tax Code of the RF. The last Article was also introduced into the Tax Code of the RF by this Federal Law.

According to laws in place, auditors are obliged to disclose information or submit documents received from audited entities only at the request of law enforcement authorities and courts. From January 1, 2019, they are obliged to submit information to the Federal Tax Service (FTS of the RF) at the first request within a ten-day period based on the decision of the head of the FTS of the RF or his deputy.

Upon receipt of such request, auditors have the right to inform the person in respect of whom the request was received.

Documents may be required for tax control in cases, if they have not been submitted previously by taxpayers in the permitted manner when conducting field tax inspections or after receiving of requests from the authorized bodies of foreign countries regarding citizens of the RF.

Such amendments to the Tax Code of the RF were developed to implement the recommendations of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) following the first phase of the review of Russian legislation within the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes.

For reference

According to the Information and Analytical system Globas, there are currently over 5 200 active financial audit organizations and over 650 individual auditors in Russia. To get acquainted with them and their business activities is possible after the subscription to system access.