Federal Tax Service offers to expand the data not relating to tax secrecy

The Federal Tax Service of Russia (FTS) offers the regional and local budget draftsmen to expand the list of information that doesn’t relate to tax secrecy. It is suggested in particular for legal entities to disclose the information about the amount of taxes paid, provision of tax accounts, average staff number, property tax.

In accordance with Art. 102 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation (TC RF), any data about the tax payer received by tax authorities, internal affairs agencies, investigation agencies, state budget fund bodies or customs agencies falls within the secrecy. At the same time the tax secrecy doesn’t protect such publicly available information as tax payer identification number (INN), violation of the tax legislation by the tax payer and the measures taken in this regard, special tax regime treated by the tax payer.

Last October the Government promoted a bill which gives access to tax secrecy for local and regional financial agencies.

At the same time, the doubters give notice that disclosure of the tax secrecy to general public will lead to leak of data and its availability for swindlers.

The supporters of these amendments consider that corresponding changes in Art. 102 of TC RF will make the business operations more transparent. It will favorably affect not only the work of the tax agencies, but also the forecast accuracy of the regional budget. Unfortunately, nowadays many entrepreneurs work “behind closed doors”, referring to the tax secrecy.