The Federation Council completed its spring session on July 28, 2018 as expected by approving a number of important and widely debated tax bills. We have briefly reviewed below the changes approved by the Federation Council that are, in our opinion, the most important.

As you may recall, we wrote earlier about the roundtable in which participated representatives of the Migration Department of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs as well as representatives of the business community, including Julia Talagaeva, Senior Associate at Forte Tax & Law.

A Legal Discussion Club meeting was held on June 28, 2018 at St. Petersburg International Business Association (SPIBA) to debate the curious decisions rendered by Russian courts to settle disputes related to real estate. Anna Yakovleva, Senior Associate at Forte Tax & Law, SPIBA Legal Committee co-chairman, and Ekaterina Belyaeva, Junior Associate at Forte Tax & Law, were speakers at this meeting.

We reported earlier on that major changes were due to be made soon to the procedure for migration registration. The new changes essentially provide that it will be possible to register foreign nationals working on Russia only with the address at which they live (rather than the address of their employer’s office as previously).

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.

Last Tuesday June 19, 2018, Anton Kabakov, Partner at Forte Tax & Law, took part in a meeting of the working group on improving investment climate held to discuss how the business environment in St. Petersburg could be improved. This working group is putting forward proposals and initiatives related to investment policy in St. Petersburg and also considers matters of law, regional issues and analytical materials on behalf of business representatives.

The newspaper Delovoy Peterburg held its annual round table together with the Migration Department of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region to discuss the latest amendments to migration laws as well as the latest practice of migration control. Julia Talagaeva, Senior Associate at Forte Tax & Law, took part in this round table discussion.

Forte Tax & Law has been closely teaming up with St. Petersburg State University to provide practical training to students and assess the quality of education and professional training offered to graduates. Anton Kabakov, Partner at Forte Tax & Law, was recently involved as a member of the State Examination Board in the assessment of the defense of master theses by graduates specializing in tax law at the Law Faculty of St. Petersburg State University.

Anna Yakovleva, Senior Associate at Forte Tax & Law, spoke last Wednesday, May 23, 2018, at an event organized by the Finnish-Russian Chamber of Commerce and dedicated to questions of compliance and director liability.

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.