The Federal Tax Service identified the signs of shell companies

According to the Federal Tax Service of Russia as of March 1, 2019, four million companies are registered in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities (EGRUL). Herewith, from the total number of registered companies, about 187 thousand or 4,7% are entities with fictitious signs.

According to the Federal Tax Service of Russia, unreliable companies have the following signs:

• trading address of the company is not at the place of registration;
• the residence of company’s management is not at the place of registration;
• frequent change of company’s place of registration;
• no lease agreements with the premises owners;
• short-term business activity;
• the company (or individual entrepreneur) is represented by trustees registered in another region of the RF;
• change of company’s management just before the submission of tax accounts;
• inaccurate information on address, director, shareholder in EGRUL;
• directorship or shareholders are non-residents of Russia;
• the company’s head has no income;
• submission of zero accounting for several periods;
• the equality of income and expenditure with minimum profit;
• VAT offset ratio is more than 98%;
• lack of employees / single employee in the accounting;
• submission of tax returns with incorrect amendment serial number;
• lack of current accounts after registration of the company;
• closure of all bank accounts of the company;
• the company has more than 10 bank accounts;
• cash flow without account balances;
• registration of the company and opening of the accounts in different regions;
• failure to appear in tax authorities for interrogations more than two times.

The signs above are taken into account in the complex evaluation index by shell company signs in the Information and Analytical system Globas. The index is available for subscribers in the relevant section of company's report.