FBK provided insights into the latest developments in tax and audit

Leading experts and lawyers from FBK Grant Thornton and its legal arm FBK Legal teamed up to hold a traditional business breakfast event for their clients. The audience were told about the latest most important developments in tax sector, up-to-date commentaries of the regulatory authorities with respect to tax payment and insurance contributions, latest trends in tax administration and tax litigation, and international standards on auditing applied in the territory of Russia.

Ekaterina Lashchinina, Manager of Audit Methodology Department, spoke on the changes that are taking place in the area of audit practice against the background of Russia’s transition to the ISAs, specifically, the newly adopted aspects of communication between the auditor and the audit entity, the auditor and those charged with governance, and a new form of the auditor’s opinion.

Ekaterina Golubeva, Senior lawyer of Tax consulting practice, unveiled the changes in store for corporate taxpayers in 2017. She specifically dwelt on the changes that are taking place in assessing and paying VAT, income tax, property tax and land tax, and transfer pricing

Tatiana Matveicheva, Head of Tax consulting practice, joined the discussion of latest developments in tax legislation placing special emphasis on intricate issues of paying transport tax complicated by the currently applicable transport payments system known as Platon.

Ilya Kucherov, Deputy Director of the Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of the Russian Federation, Doctor of Law, Professor, Honoured Lawyer of the Russian Federation, also underscored the topicality of this issue and divergent understandings among tax advisors and tax authorities.

The FBK Legal speaker admits that the concept which dictates that transport tax is to be reduced by the amount paid within the Platon system is generally constructive. However, she expressed some concerns that the generally positive idea is translated into real life practice in such a way that the amount of transport tax cannot be recognised within the expenses of the entity; it is the difference between the tax amount and the amount paid under the Platon provision that is actually recognised by tax authorities as transport tax expenses. Moreover, if the amount paid by the entity under the Platon provision is greater than the assessed transport tax, there is no way of recognising transport tax expenses at all. “FBK Legal argues, however, that, despite the fact that transport tax deduction is available, this tax is still to be assessed and, therefore, can be recognised within expenses, pursuant to Art. 264 of the Russian Tax Code. Otherwise, the taxpayer would have to pay statutory amounts at the expense of its net profit, which is economically unreasonable. The lawyers, however, admit that it’ll take time until the tax authorities accept this argument,” Tatiana Matveicheva said

Natalya Ryabova, Senior lawyer at Tax consulting practice, briefed the audience on the thorny issues of personal income tax assessment, including determination of the individual’s tax status, schedule to follow to pay the PIT to the budget after salaries are paid, taxation of dismissal payments.

Alesya Khomich, Senior expert at Tax consulting practice, spoke on the newly enacted rules of application of value-added tax to electronic services provided to customers by foreign companies in the territory of Russia (the tax is also known as Google tax) and unsettled issues arising out of the application of this tax in terms of legislation.

Alexey Anishchenko, Senior manager at Financial advisory department, outlined principles of a system approach to be applied to transfer pricing and main steps involved to control transfer prices within the company or a group of companies.

Alexander Grigoryev, Manager of Tax litigation practice, dwelt on the key trends in tax litigation practices and provided insight into the position of courts on fly-by-night companies, transfer prices, and collection of tax arrears from the property owner.

Mikhail Golovanev, Manager of Tax litigation practice, went deeply into the question of changes in tax administration of insurance contributions to be introduced from 1 January2017. The speaker focused on the new rules of insurance contributions reporting, field and in-house tax audit in respect of insurance contributions, changes in the imposition of liability within the legislation applied to insurance contributions.

The business event ended with a Q&A session.

Business breakfast has been organised by FBK Grant Thornton for over ten years. The event historically brings together best-in-class advisors and business players to discuss professionally related topics

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