Changes in legislation in 2021

In 2021, the Federal laws came into force concerning: changes in administrative, criminal and tax legislation, the scopes of state control, licensing and audit of reporting, the creation of new information systems, the activities of foreign companies.

Administrative and criminal legislation

The Federal Law No. 206-FL of June 11, 2021 introduced amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, tightening the liability for disclosing the limited access information and establishing administrative liability for illegal obtaining limited access information. Moreover, the Federal Law No. 216-FL of June 11, 2021 amended Art. 183 and 320 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, clarifying the rules on the illegal disclosure of commercial and tax secrecy, and banking confidentiality, as well as information on security measures in relation to officials of law enforcement or regulatory agencies.

Federal Tax Service

From January 1st, 2021 the Chapter 26.3 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation “Tax system in the form of the unified tax on imputed income for certain activities” is declared to be no longer in force, in accordance with the Federal law as of June 29, 2012 №97-FL.
Legal entities, having paid the unified tax on imputed income (UTII), have a right to use the simplified tax system (STS) in future as one of the tax regimes, meaning special procedure of tax payment and focused on small and medium business.

From April 24, 2021 the Federal Law No. 350-FL of October 27, 2020 came into force with amendments to Article 5 of the Federal Law “On State Registration of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs”. The law clarified the content of the Unified State Register of Legal Entities in relation to limited liability companies and joint stock companies. Some information about legal entities and individual entrepreneurs is now entered into the Unified State Register of Legal Entities by the registration authorities independently. The period within which legal entities and individual entrepreneurs are obliged to notify the registration authorities about changes in the information contained in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities has been increased from 3 to 7 working days.

The Federal Law No. 374-FL of November 23, 2020 amended parts one and two of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation and certain legislative acts. The main changes concerning legal entities are as follows:

• since January 1, 2021 it is established that in respect of a dead or destroyed taxable object, the calculation of property tax is terminated from the 1st day of the month of death/destruction on the basis of the relevant application submitted by the taxpayer to the tax authority by its own choice
• since July 1, 2021, the tax returns will be considered as unreported if the fact of signing by unauthorized persons or non-complaining of their indicators with standards will be found. For such cases, the features of termination and resumption of desk audit were established.

The Federal Law No. 470-FL of December 29, 2020 amended the RF Tax Code providing for a significant reduction in the criteria for tax monitoring.

The Federal Law No. 6-FL of February 17, 2021 amended the Article 86 of Part I of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation to oblige credit institutions to provide tax authorities with documentation upon their requests.

As amended by the Federal Law No. 368-FL of November 9, 2020, from July 1, 2021 the tax authorities will receive the right to inform the taxpayers in advance on upcoming suspension of bank accounts.

Financial statements

The Federal Law No. 476-FL of December 29, 2020 introduced the amendments to the Law “On audit activities” concerning the conditions for the mandatory audit of financial statements.
Starting from January 1, 2021 financial indicators, exceeding the threshold values of which is the basis for conducting a mandatory audit of financial statements, have been increased. Non-profit organizations are exempted from the obligation to audit financial statements if certain conditions are met.

State statistics

The Federal Law No. 174-FL of June 11, 2021 imposes a duty to form the Enterprise Group Register on the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat).The Rosstat Order No. 566 of September 16, 2021 defined the list of information on investment activity of group companies.

State control, licensing

According to the Federal Law No. 247-FL of July 31, 2020 "On mandatory requirements in the Russian Federation", regardless of the recognition as invalid, not effective in the territory of the Russian Federation or canceled regulatory legal acts within the framework of the "regulatory guillotine", from January 1, 2021, when exercising state control, it is not allowed to assess compliance with mandatory requirements if they entered into force before January 1, 2020 It was also established that from January 1, 2021, non-compliance with the requirements contained in such acts will not be the basis for bringing to administrative responsibility if they entered into force before January 1, 2020.
From January 1, 2021, when exercising state control, granting licenses and other permits, accreditations, it is not allowed to assess compliance with the mandatory requirements contained in officially unpublished regulatory legal acts (with the exception of requirements constituting state secrets, related to legally protected or restricted information).
These provisions are not applied in the electric power industry, as well as in the implementation of public-private partnership projects with the participation of the Russian Federation.

The Federal Law No. 478-FL of December 27, 2019 established a transition from January 1, 2021 to a "registry model" in licensing, aimed at cessation of the paper-form licensing. Licenses are now confirmed by entries in the relevant register. Access to the license registers is publicly available.

In accordance with the Law above and the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 652 from April 26, 2021, a public not-for-profit organization "Unified Gambling Regulator" was founded; the organization is established to ensure the implementation of the legislation on state regulation of this activity. In this regard, according to the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 638 from April 24, 2021, regulations that oblige the Federal Tax Service of the Russian Federation to oversee this area will become invalid from September 27, 2021 .

The order of formation, maintenance, operation and development of the Unified Register of types of federal state control (supervision), regional state control (supervision) and municipal control was approved by the Russian Federation Government Decree No. 528 dated April 2, 2021. Inspections will be possible only in case when there are appropriate entries in the Register, which is maintained by the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation, starting July 1, 2021.

Information systems

In accordance with the Federal Law No. 488-FL of December 25, 2018, the State Information System for Monitoring the Turnover of Goods subject to mandatory labeling by means of identification was created, where the following goods are recorded and monitored: tobacco products, fur products, footwear, medicines, cameras (except for cinematographic cameras), photo flashes and flashlights, tires and tire casing, clothing and linen, perfume and eau de toilette, wheelchairs for the disabled, bicycles and bicycle frames, dairy products.
The turnover of unmarked goods will be forbidden since January 01, 2021. Unsold leftover stock must be marked by the participants till February 01, 2021.

The Federal Law No. 219-FL of June 28,2021 amended the Law of the Russian Federation "On Employment of the Population in the Russian Federation". The law came into force on July 1, 2021. The employers of all legal forms of ownership, state and municipal authorities, state and municipal institutions, unitary enterprises, organizations with state participation are required to post the following information on the Unified digital employment and labor relations platform "Work in Russia".

Foreign companies

The Federal Law No. 27-FL of February 24, 2021 amended the Article 21 of the Federal Law "On Foreign Investments in the Russian Federation", concerning the rules of accreditation of branches and representative offices of foreign legal entities.

The Federal Law No. 236-FL of July 1, 2021 establishes the procedure and conditions for foreign persons to operate on the Internet in Russia using information resources with an audience of more than 500 thousand Russian users per day.