In the third reading, the State Duma adopted amendments to Federal Law On Migration Registration of Foreign Nationals and Stateless Persons in the Russian Federation. These changes will affect all foreign nationals temporarily staying in Russia, including those employed and working under employment contracts as well as highly qualified specialists.

From May 25, 2018 to July 25, 2018 a special procedure for registering foreign nationals will apply in cities hosting FIFA World Cup matches, i.e. Moscow, St. Petersburg, Volgograd, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Kaliningrad, Nizhniy Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Samara, Saransk and Sochi.

From April 20, 2018 onwards, employers will be required to use new forms when sending to the Department of Migration Matters of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, among others, the following notices regarding foreign employees

A new base for accrual of property tax will be determined by the end of 2018 in St. Petersburg

Companies often do not pay enough attention to issues related to the holding and documenting of annual general meetings. This, in turn, gives rise to unnecessary risks and errors associated with internal control, relations with business partners and compliance with Russian law

The dispute is about supply transactions concluded between Uralkali and a related Swiss trader who resold the goods delivered by Uralkali to independent customers.

The Supreme Court has rendered an important ruling in a dispute over the thin capitalization rule involving OAO SUEK-Kuzbass (further the “Company”). In this case, the Supreme Court allowed considering the loan principal as investment in capital in order to apply the preferential tax rates for dividends provided under double taxation treaties (further “Tax Treaties”) when paying interest re-qualified as dividends under the thin capitalization rule. The conclusions drawn by the Supreme Court will undoubtedly be of interest to all companies that have or are planning to get intragroup loans.

The Constitutional Court of Russia finally published its ruling on a case partially validating “parallel” import. This case involved PAG, a Russian company which imported Sony trademarked products into Russia without Sony’s consent and was required to destroy these products as counterfeit

Several laws putting in place a “second capital amnesty” in Russia came into force on February 19, 2018 [1]. As previously, the main purpose is the deoffshorization of the economy and return of capital to Russia. Businessmen who did not declare their assets and accounts during the first capital amnesty in 2015 – 2016 are expected to do so now and to return their assets to Russia on completely lawful grounds without incurring any risk of being brought to tax, administrative and criminal liability

On behalf of the entire Forte Tax & Law team, I would like to wish you a happy New Year and a great start to the new business season! We hope that 2018 will be filled with success and achievements. To this end, we have put together a brief overview of the most important changes to be introduced to Russian laws so that you can be forewarned, and thereby forearmed, when they come into force in 2018.