Voluntary declaration of assets and bank accounts by private persons is prolonged

In our publication as of August 21, 2015 «New In Doing Business: Law And Realities» we mentioned the law on capital amnesty. Today we are going to dwell upon this legal act.

The Federal law of the Russian Federation as of June 8^th, 2015 № 140-FZ «On voluntary declaration of assets and bank accounts (deposits) by natural persons and on introducing amendments to certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation» passed by the State Duma as of May 22nd, 2015 offered Russian citizens to declare from July 1^st to December 31^st, 2015 the foreign property, bank accounts, securities and stocks in the capital of foreign companies, on which the citizens gain income. In this respect the citizens are given guarantees to provide exemption from tax and criminal liabilities, if the deals related to foreign income were concluded before January 1^st, 2015 within the property stated in the declaration. Declaration and guarantee procedures are documented by the law.

However, according to experts, law execution practice shows that the declaration procedures appeared to be very complicated and the guarantees – insufficient. Due to this only about 200 corresponding declarations were filed for the first half of the year of the law operation. At the same time several dozens of the cases of holding Russian citizens’ abroad accounts on the ground of check of their origin became known. Probably it was made in order to prevent financial assets from returning to Russia.

It was the proposal of the Association of Regional Banks to prolong the capital amnesty and the President of the Russian Federation proposed to extend the period for another 6 months in the Address to the Federal Assembly in December 2015. As a result as of December 22nd the State Duma passed the law at once in three readings № 401-FZ «On introducing amendments to article 5 of the Federal law «On voluntary declaration of assets and bank accounts (deposits) by natural persons and on introducing amendments to certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation» extending the declaration term to July 1^st, 2016. The law was endorsed by the President of the Russian Federation as of December 29^th and published in «Rossiskaya gazeta» as of December 31^st, 2015.