website- Russia has become one of the countries in which it is expressly forbidden to create tax evasion schemes. Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday signed amendments to the Tax Code (TC) of the Russian Federation, establishing a legislative ban on the creation of tax evasion schemes. The new edition of the Tax Code will contain a list of dishonest actions of taxpayers, in which the Federal Tax Service (FTS) will refuse to recognize expenses and tax deductions. bases - conscientious and dishonest actions are now united not by formal criteria, but by the principle of the reality of the taxpayer's operations. Dramatic changes in the enforcement of the amendments to the Tax Code are unlikely to cause - the creation of "tax abuse" schemes has been limited in judicial practice since 2006 in the concept of "unjustified tax benefit".

The amendments to the Tax Code, signed yesterday by President Vladimir Putin, expressly prohibit the creation of schemes for the legal registration of business transactions, the purpose of which is the deliberate reduction of the tax base or tax evasion. Thus, Russia has become one of the countries that have begun implementing the OECD recommendations on limiting tax base erosion and shifting profits from taxation (BEPS plan) directly into tax legislation. From this moment, the era of legality of schemes for lowering the tax base, which were widespread in 1991-2006, formally ends in the Russian Federation: the Tax Code now directly declares illegal operations aimed at reducing the tax base. Until recently, the law did not formally prohibit inventing schemes; only the court recognized them as illegal in each specific case.

Recall that the amendments to the Tax Code, which the Ministry of Finance and the Federal Tax Service had been formulating for several years, were first introduced to the State Duma in 2014, but the vagueness in them of the criteria for classifying individual transactions as illegal stopped their adoption. IN new version the bill was submitted to the State Duma in the spring of 2015 by Andrei Makarov, chairman of the budget and tax committee, deputy Sergei Chizhov and senator Efim Malkin. The bill was discussed in the expert council under the budget and tax committee, in the final version in the third reading it was adopted on July 7.

By this time, the amendments to the Tax Code had acquired a conceptual design, according to the first deputy head of the Federal Tax Service, Sergei Arakelov (see interview with him on this page). The last disagreements on the implementation of the principles of the new Art. 54-1 of the Tax Code, in particular, the business insisted that the problems of the counterparty in the transaction per se (for example, the unidentified person who signed the contract, violation of the law by the counterparty) should not be grounds for the Federal Tax Service to refuse to deduct or account for the taxpayer's expenses. The only criterion for the illegality of an operation affecting tax base, in this sense is the unreality of its implementation by the counterparty. This is not a formal, but a substantive criterion, and a very important one: in fact, it determines that the amount of taxes paid in the general case is affected only by the business activities of the taxpayer, but not by the legal registration of this activity, aimed at finding ways to avoid paying this or that amount. taxes.

Recall that, in fact, most of the business in the Russian Federation already lives in this reality: since 2007, after the decision of the Plenum of the Supreme Arbitration Court dated October 12, 2006 No. was forbidden judicial practice.

The current amendments to the Tax Code formalize the same approach, but already at the level of legislation. The principle of the need to prove the "intentionality" of the taxpayer's actions in the Tax Code was transferred from judicial practice. The amendments to the Tax Code exclude the principle of “failure to exercise due diligence” by the taxpayer, previously applied by the courts and criticized by the business community, and replace it with a more precise and understandable principle: any transaction that affects the payment of tax must be made by the declared direct counterparty. This finally closes the possibility of the most common scheme for underestimating tax liabilities - the use of one-day firms: if the counterparty legal entity did not fulfill or could not fulfill the contract for which it received payment, such a transaction cannot have tax consequences in the form of an understatement of liabilities for tax deductions and expenses.

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Deputy Head of the Internal Audit, Control and Methodology Group

What happened?

Amendments to the Tax Code were adopted, which tighten tax control

The Tax Code has been supplemented with a new article that prohibits companies from optimizing their taxes through legal tax schemes (Law 163-FZ).

Starting August 19, 2017, taxpayers will receive a “pleasant” gift from the state in the form of additional restrictions on the legal reduction (minimization) of taxes.

In the first part of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, a new article 54.1 “Limits for exercising the rights to calculate the tax base and (or) the amount of tax, fee, insurance premiums” (Federal Law No. 163-FZ of 07/18/2017) has appeared.

In the media, the adopted amendments were "advertised" as an innovation that simplifies the proof of the reality of transactions and complicates the use of tax schemes. But the sign "presumption of good faith" loses its meaning if you carefully read the document. In fact, the law 163-FZ will make it much more difficult to prove that the company conducted transactions for the purpose of making a profit, and not tax evasion.

What does it mean?

Any methods of tax optimization are associated with a great risk.

The ban on the use of tax schemes is directly spelled out in the Tax Code (Article 54.1 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation). From the end of August 2017, the tax authorities will conduct in-house and on-site audits, taking into account the provisions of the new article, which means they will massively withdraw expenses and deductions for transactions that they see as lack of a business purpose.

Federal Law 163-FZ actually strengthens the powers tax authorities within the framework of cameral and field inspections. The authors of the bill wanted to transfer to the Tax Code the norms of the 53rd decision of the Supreme Arbitration Court, which was actively used in the field of obtaining tax benefits, but in fact it turned out differently - new terms appeared in the law, but the mechanism for implementing the norms of the law for inspections has not yet been invented.

Article 54.1 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation states:

It is not allowed to reduce the tax base and (or) the amount of tax as a result of misrepresentation of information about the facts of economic life(a set of such facts), on objects of taxation to be reflected in the tax and (or) accounting or tax reporting of the taxpayer (clause 1, article 54.1 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation).

If these circumstances are absent, then the taxpayer has the right to reduce the tax base or the amount of tax, but only if two conditions are met simultaneously:

1. the main purpose of the transaction (operation) is not non-payment (incomplete payment) and (or) offset (refund) of the amount of tax;
2. the obligation under a transaction (operation) has been fulfilled by a person who is a party to an agreement concluded with a taxpayer and (or) by a person to whom the obligation to execute a transaction (operation) has been transferred under an agreement or law.

All these provisions apply to fee payers, payers of insurance premiums, and tax agents. That is, for everyone.

As the title of the new article of the Tax Code implies, taxpayers will be limited in their rights to reduce the tax base. Restrictions, as we see it, apply even to completely legitimate optimization methods.

To do this, inspectors need to prove that:

The deal was unreal;

The deal was for the purpose of avoiding taxes;

The contract was executed by the wrong company (IP) with which the taxpayer concluded the contract.

After a careful reading of Art. 54.1 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, the following conclusions can be drawn:

If earlier it was enough to collect a title package for a counterparty, thereby showing tax prudence, now this will not be enough. Now companies will have to prove that they did not have information, for example, that the supplier does not have sufficient resources to fulfill the contract (equipment, storage facilities, personnel, etc.). Now companies will need to prove that by concluding this or that agreement, they did not pursue the goal of “tax minimization”, and the transaction was concluded with a specific business purpose.

From the point of view of business, the tax authorities will intervene in the deals they conclude by charging additional taxes. That is, if the company pays for the goods to an intermediary, the inspectors will remove the costs, since no one interfered with purchasing the goods from the manufacturer.

An important point: with regard to desk audits, the law 163-FZ applies to declarations submitted after the entry into force of these changes. And according to on-site inspections, the situation is different - the norms of Art. 54.1 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation will be applied to on-site inspections, decisions on which were made after the entry into force of these changes, but only in relation to transactions between related parties. That is, the period covered by tax audits may include 2016, 2015, 2014, when Federal Law 163-FZ had not yet been invented!

Spoonful of honey for taxpayers

At the same time, Law 163-FZ also contains a spoonful of honey. True, very small: the tax authorities will not be able to withdraw expenses and deductions on formal grounds.

So, from now on, inspectors will not be able to find fault with transactions if:

"primary" was endorsed by an unidentified person or a person without a power of attorney;

the counterparty of the company committed tax violations;

it was possible to conclude a deal with another counterparty on more favorable terms.

In other words, according to the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, the company is no longer obliged to monitor the integrity of its counterparties. The main thing is that the deal is real. But this does not mean that for one-day firms expenses and VAT deductible will be accepted for tax accounting.

The number of tax disputes will undoubtedly increase. Instead of the presumption of good faith in the Tax Code, in fact, there will be a presumption of guilt of taxpayers - that is, it will be necessary to prove that, by concluding certain transactions, the company did not pursue the goal of reducing its taxes.

This is especially true of previous tax periods, when companies did not care about the need to take the protection of their “rear” so seriously.

And now what i can do?

Check counterparties and collect evidence of the business purpose of transactions

After the adoption of the law 163-FZ, it will be necessary to carefully prepare for the justification of operations and transactions in which the tax authorities may see an attempt to minimize taxes.

It is necessary to proceed from the fact that from now on any transaction, any business process will be considered by the tax authorities from the point of view of distrust.

Having received even more powers in the field of researching transactions, studying their “business” component, the tax authorities will constantly ask questions: “Why did the company choose this particular intermediary and not another?”, “Why an intermediary. And not the manufacturer?”, “Why did they provide such a discount?”, “For what reason did they sell below the purchase price?” In order to cast doubt on the existence of a business goal and charge additional taxes, penalties, and fines to the company.

Which means the company must have a "package" of explanations for each transaction and operation, justifying the existence of a business purpose.

These may be calculations financial results deals, business correspondence with a counterparty, records of negotiations in anticipation of a deal.

And the second moment. Although the tax authorities claim that now the company is not obliged to monitor the integrity of its counterparty, this is by no means the case. On the contrary, after the adoption of the law, it will be necessary to check their counterparties - existing and potential - even more carefully in order to be 100% sure that they have the material and production resources in order to purchase, produce, store, deliver goods, etc.

Unfortunately, at present there is no information on how the tax authorities will exercise these powers, what documents the inspectors will request for certain transactions.

We believe that in the near future a new regulation on the conduct of inspections will nevertheless appear. We will follow the news, and we will definitely tell you how to prepare for an audit in the light of the new law 163-FZ and what documents to prepare in support of certain operations.

What if you do nothing?

The IFTS will charge additional taxes, penalties and fines, and the courts will be on the side of the inspection

The tax authorities will remove the costs and VAT deductions for all transactions in which they do not see the existence of a business purpose. And then there will be judgment. Taking into account the fact that now 84% of tax cases are considered in favor of the IFTS, the company can immediately say goodbye to its money.

Thus, now, when preparing for transactions (especially large ones), it is necessary to “lay straws” everywhere: from below, from above, from the side and even across. It is necessary to “whitewash” your business more and more so that it looks like it in the eyes of the tax authorities.

You can entrust this issue only to a company that has rich experience in tax and accounting and support of complex transactions. 1C-WiseAdvice is just such a company.

In the conditions of tightening control, the mission of our company plays a special role:

work in conditions of average indicators, pay taxes on the average border of the industry, so as not to catch the eye of tax inspectors;

competent splitting of business - for the legal reduction of taxes and the solution of other business problems of the company;

• timely advice from our experts on how to avoid situations in which the tax authorities can attract a company for non-compliance with Art. 54.1 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation.

Contact an expert

Amendments to the Tax Code of the Russian Federation came into force, defining the limits of legal and illegal tax optimization. RBC analyzed how the new rules will affect taxpayers and whether businesses will have to restructure their tax policy

Photo: Igor Zarembo / RIA Novosti

At the end of last week, amendments to the Tax Code (TC) came into force, supplementing it with a new article 54.1 “Limits for exercising the rights to calculate the tax base and (or) the amount of tax, dues, insurance premiums”, which establish limits for the rights of taxpayers to tax optimization. In essence, the amendments define what is considered a justified and unjustified tax benefit.

unfounded tax benefit will be considered if it was obtained as a result of misrepresentation of information in the accounting or reporting of the taxpayer. If there is no misstatement, the receipt of the tax benefit is considered justified if both conditions are met simultaneously. First, the main purpose of the transaction is not non-payment (or refund) of tax. Second, the deal is real: the parties fulfill their obligations under it. This, lawmakers believe, will prevent taxpayers from using fly-by-night firms.

The amendments also enshrined in the Tax Code of the Russian Federation the rejection of the formal approach of the tax authorities to the identification of unreasonable tax benefits. If source documents signed by an unauthorized person, the counterparty is a violator of tax laws, or the same economic result could have been obtained in other transactions, now by itself should not tell the tax authorities about the illegality of the tax benefit.

The provisions of the law apply not only to taxes, but also to insurance premiums and fees, tax agents must also obey them. The tax authority can establish the validity of the tax benefit only during an audit; for on-site tax audits, the provisions of the law began to be adopted from August 19, for desk audits - from the third quarter of 2017.

Prior to the advent of the amendments, there were no clear rules that would clearly draw the line between legitimate optimization and tax evasion in the legislation. For the last ten years business disputes with the Federal tax service were considered by arbitration courts within the framework of the concept of unjustified tax benefit. The concept of unjustified tax benefit was introduced in judicial practice Supreme Arbitration Court (SAC) in 2006 (Resolution of the Plenum of the SAC dated October 12, 2006 No. 53 “On the assessment by arbitration courts of the unreasonableness of obtaining tax benefits”). Arbitration courts in each case examined the circumstances of the transaction and determined to what extent the actions of the companies corresponded to the formal criteria approved by the Supreme Arbitration Court of Russia.

In order to assess exactly how the new rules of the game will affect the relationship between tax authorities and taxpayers, the decisions of arbitration courts, and to what extent businesses will have to restructure their tax policy, RBC interviewed lawyers in the tax law. The overall assessment is rather with a minus sign, although experts still note certain advantages, for example, the rejection of a formal approach. Lawyers believe that the law can negatively affect business: the new norm gives more possibilities tax authorities to assess additional taxes and reduce the number of protection mechanisms for conscientious taxpayers. The Federal Tax Service has the opposite position.​

Down with formalism

An obvious plus of the amendments is that now the Tax Code of the Russian Federation clearly declares the rejection of a formal approach to identifying unreasonable tax benefits. “In fact, those cases are becoming a thing of the past when the tax authorities could, for example, refuse to refund tax to a taxpayer or refuse to recognize expenses just because a comma was missing in the invoice or a technical error was made. The law clearly proclaims the priority of the reality of the transaction over any errors, - said the deputy, one of the authors of the amendments, Andrei Makarov. “Now the taxpayer will not be responsible in cases where his counterparty has not paid taxes.”

Companies have faced the formal approach of the tax authorities so often that the Federal Tax Service even had to issue a letter to cool the ardor a little on the ground, says Mikhail Alexandrov, partner at the A2 Law Office. More than 90% of additional tax assessments based on the results of on-site tax audits were due to complaints about signatures on documents and doubts about the integrity of counterparties, explains Diana Maklozyan, head of the legal department at Heads Consulting. “The amounts of additional charges for field tax audits rarely amount to less than 15 million rubles. Almost every decision on the field tax audit was challenged, and before the decision was made by the court, money had already been debited from the company’s account if Money not enough, accounts were blocked, and in fact the company's activities were paralyzed,” says Maklozyan.

Photo: Dmitry Feoktistov / TASS

The reality of the deal instead of "due diligence"

The fulfillment of obligations by the counterparty under the transaction as a confirmation of its reality instead of endless checks by the taxpayer of their counterparties both from among suppliers and from the ranks of buyers (namely, this was required before) should also, in theory, be a plus for taxpayers, experts interviewed by RBC believe.

Recently, the very fact of contractual relations with one-day firms (which the taxpayer may not be aware of) has often been considered by arbitration courts as indisputable evidence of unjustified tax benefits.

​“Trends in the approach of courts to cases of unjustified tax benefits have become significantly tougher since about 2015-2016 - at present, the vast majority of such cases are considered not in favor of taxpayers,” says Alexander Yerasov, head of the Goltsblat BLP tax dispute resolution group. This reversal in arbitration practice coincided with the abolition of the Supreme Arbitration Court of Russia. In August 2014, the Supreme Arbitration Court ceased its activities, and the collegium established at the same time began to operate. Supreme Court on economic disputes. Until 2015, the situation was better. If the company was able to prove that it had exercised due diligence (one of the criteria for the good faith of a taxpayer approved by the plenum of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation) when choosing a counterparty, then the courts supported the taxpayer, provided that the transaction was actually completed.

Typical in this respect is the case of Metinvest Eurasia (copies judgments posted in the ATP "Consultant Plus"). She twice - in 2015 and in 2017 - challenged the decisions of the tax inspectorate on additional tax assessments. In both cases, the company was charged with receiving an unjustified tax benefit when concluding a contract with a carrier. Tax office considered the transport transportation paid by the company to be fictitious. The Arbitration Court of the Moscow District came to opposite conclusions. For the first time, the court sided with Metinvest Eurasia, but already in 2017, it supported the tax inspectorate.

One more example. In 2014, the Neftekhim Experimental Plant, a company from Bashkiria (one of the largest taxpayers) managed to win in three instances a litigation with the Interregional Inspectorate of the Federal Tax Service about allegedly hidden taxes in the amount of more than 120 million rubles. The tax inspectorate then considered that the plant did not purchase chemical raw materials (as indicated in the reports), but used plain water in production. Arbitration courts then did not find any signs that the company from Bashkiria received unreasonable tax benefits. However, the Collegium of the Supreme Court for Economic Disputes annulled the decisions of the courts. The board substantiated its decision by the fact that the arbitration court did not investigate the very possibility of execution of the transaction by the plant's counterparty.

Now, according to the amendments, the execution of the transaction by the counterparty is sufficient to obtain a reasonable tax benefit. But lawyers point to several serious “buts”: the reality of the transaction as a result of its execution by the counterparty will still have to be proven. In their opinion, taxpayers will still not be able to get away from a detailed check of counterparties.

The Federal Tax Service may consider the benefit unreasonable if it is not proved that the counterparty has the equipment and personnel necessary to provide the service, Diana Maklozyan cites an example. Therefore, it is important to check the counterparty before concluding a deal, to make sure that he has the necessary resources to fulfill the terms of the contract.

Now the business must preventively form protective mechanisms, agrees Alexander Lemchik, managing partner of the law firm Lemchik, Krupsky and Partners. To prevent the tax authorities from drawing conclusions about the unreasonableness of the tax benefit, companies need to collect a “dossier on the reality of the transaction”: photo reports, minutes of meetings, correspondence, contact details, commercial offers, information on internal tenders when concluding contracts, memos on economic, production, organizational need for contracting. Legally correct paperwork and due diligence will also play in favor of the taxpayer, he is sure.

Business purpose instead of economic feasibility

The second prerequisite for companies to be able to account for expenses and deductions from the tax base is the presence of a business purpose for the transaction, and not just a desire to optimize taxes.

The concept of a business purpose is quite common in the tax legal relations of European countries. Its essence lies in the fact that the actions of the taxpayer are not called into question if he has a reasonable economic goal in addition to the tax optimization itself. “The amendments to the Tax Code of the Russian Federation are an attempt by legislators to introduce the concept of a business purpose, which migrated into Russian practice from the foreign doctrine of business purpose, legitimized in 2006 by the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation,” says Marat Agabalyan, partner at the law firm TertychnyAgabalyan.

In Russia, attempts to establish the obligation of a business purpose as an indispensable condition for the recognition of expenses and deductions have been made repeatedly. For the first time this concept was proposed by the lawyers of the company Haarmann, Hemmelrath & Partner, which won back in 2006 the competition of the presidential administration to develop a mechanism for distinguishing between legal and illegal tax optimization. However, the legislators did not dare to fix this norm in the code.

Arbitration courts, on the other hand, considered the business purpose of the transaction as an important, but far from the only condition for the right of the taxpayer to recognize expenses.

However, lawyers believe that in practice, in case of disputes with tax authorities, the amendment will not change the situation much. Thus, the amendments do not describe ways to prove that the main purpose of the transaction is not non-payment of tax, Diana Maklozyan reflects, which means that these issues will again be decided by the court. For example, if you are engaged in the sale of products, then the cost of purchasing construction equipment will raise questions from the tax, Maklozyan gives an example. Therefore, you need to be clear about how the costs are related to your activities and how you can prove during the verification that the services were actually received. “Most likely, the Federal Tax Service of the Russian Federation will continue to challenge the economic feasibility of taxpayers' transactions. After all, the new rules do not directly prohibit this,” Marat Aghabalyan agrees.

Oleg Ovchar, head of the legal department of the Federal Tax Service of Russia, thinks differently: “Information about violations of tax laws by a company can be very different. No one will impose any restrictions on the use of this information to identify violations in the payment of taxes and the return of funds to the budget. But we do not study the economic feasibility of transactions. We check, firstly, whether the transaction was executed by the counterparty, and secondly, whether the costs of the transaction were justified, that is, whether they served to achieve an economic result. That's all."

Tax Code of the Russian Federation vs Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Arbitration Court

A separate question that remains open is how the amendments to the Tax Code of the Russian Federation will work together with the current resolution of the plenum of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation, lawyers interviewed by RBC indicate. Their opinions on this matter differed.

Thus, Marat Aghabalyan believes that the amendments to the Tax Code were made in order to bring the current legislation in line with the established judicial practice. “The new article 54.1 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation supplements the decision of the plenum of the Supreme Arbitration Court, but does not introduce anything fundamentally new,” he says. Alexander Yerasov has a similar opinion: “In fact, a new article (54.1 of the Tax Code. — RBC) is an abbreviated version of the decision of the Supreme Arbitration Court No. 53. But, he stipulates, "with many gaps and very fuzzy terminology." It remains to be hoped, Erasov continues, that when considering disputes in order to protect bona fide business, arbitration courts, in addition to the provisions of the new article, will also continue to apply the provisions of the resolution of the SAC Plenum that are absent in it.

The new article also lacks such important guarantees as the presumption of the good faith of the taxpayer, the concept of due diligence and the actual economic meaning of transactions, Erasov adds, which were established by the decision of the SAC. The legislator did not build new rails, but paved additional ways for the tax authorities, Denis Savin, senior lawyer at BGP Litigation, points out.

Oleg Ovchar sees the joint work of the amendments and the resolution of the plenum of the Supreme Arbitration Court as follows: “We (the tax department. — RBC) strive for transparency in relationships with business. The new Article 54.1 introduced two clear and understandable conditions for the recognition of transaction costs into the Tax Code: the reality of the fulfillment of obligations by the counterparty and its business purpose. These conditions are basic. Based on them, decisions will be made on the recognition or non-recognition of expenses and deductions. Other criteria, including those mentioned by the SAC Plenum in Resolution No. 53, can be used as additional ones.”

Businesses must be vigilant

In view of the foregoing, businesses should double their vigilance, sums up Alexander Erasov: “The new article 54.1 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation provides for much fewer mechanisms for protecting the rights of bona fide business compared to Resolution No. 53 of the Supreme Arbitration Court and much more opportunities for substantiating the additional charges made by the tax authorities.”

In addition, the law is permeated with new terminology, but does not define these terms, Savin points out: “For example, it is not entirely clear what should be understood by “distortion of information about the facts of economic life”, “rights in calculating the tax base”. This allows for an extremely broad interpretation of the law, the lawyer believes.

Also, entrepreneurs should not think that methods of obtaining tax benefits that do not fall under the provisions of the new law are now legalized, Denis Savin explains. Such methods of aggressive tax optimization, such as or attracting offshore companies, really do not fall under the new article of the Tax Code, he explains, but in court the Federal Tax Service can still prove the illegality of these schemes, relying on the same decision of the Supreme Arbitration Court.​

Currently, for the purposes of tax planning, a taxpayer has the right to resort to the use of those methods and means of tax planning that are not prohibited by law. The state, guided primarily by fiscal interests, as well as the judiciary, guided by the interests of justice, limit the scope of tax minimization using various methods. The classification of which is given in the table.

Table number 3.

Tax planning limitations
Legislative restrictions	Administrative impact	Special Judicial Doctrines
Legally defined procedures for controlling and counteracting undesirable, from the point of view of the state, activities of the taxpayer.	Legislatively defined powers of state bodies to compel economic entities to refuse to use dubious methods of tax minimization, implemented, as a rule, by holding them accountable.	Approaches developed by judicial practice to determine the objective intentions of the parties in the implementation of transactions or the implementation of financial and economic operations.
For example: − state registration; − tax registration; − use of cash registers; − product certification; − accounting and tax accounting; − “punitive” taxes; − "prohibitive" customs duties; − other legal requirements.	For example: − collection of arrears; − fines; − joint and several fulfillment of the obligation to pay tax by legal successors in the course of reorganization; − control by the state and mechanisms of intervention in the activities of the taxpayer in transfer pricing; − special rules of law aimed at suppressing offshore schemes.	For example: − the doctrine of "Being over form"; − doctrine "Business Purpose"; − Doctrine "Transactions by stages"; − the doctrine of "Bad faith of the taxpayer"; - the doctrine of "Abuse of the right"; − doctrine “Unjustified tax benefit”; − doctrine "Abnormal acts of management" − doctrine “Economically justified expenses”.

4.1. Legislative restrictions

Legislative restrictions - these are legally defined procedures for monitoring the financial and economic activities of the taxpayer in order to prevent the use of illegal or undesirable, from the point of view of the state, methods and methods.

For example, legislative restrictions provide for the obligation of the subject to undergo state registration, provide documents necessary for the calculation and payment of tax, etc. Such restrictions include the established measures of responsibility for violations of tax laws.

Business entities should take into account and comply with the following legal restrictions:

1) state registration , the procedure for which is regulated by the Federal Law of August 8, 2001 N 129-FZ "On State Registration of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs". At present, the authorized body carrying out state registration legal entities and individual entrepreneurs, is the Federal Tax Service of Russia. If entrepreneurial activity is carried out without state registration, then this entails bringing the person engaged in entrepreneurial activity to two types of liability:

− Imposition of an administrative fine in the amount of 500 to 2000 rubles (Article 14.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation);

- bringing to criminal responsibility in the form of a fine, compulsory work, arrest or imprisonment for up to five years (Article 171 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation);

2) tax registration. Taxpayers must register with the tax authorities at the location of the organization, the location of its separate subdivisions, the place of residence of an individual, as well as at the location of their immovable property and vehicles subject to taxation. Tax registration of organizations and individual entrepreneurs according to their location (residence) is carried out by tax authorities on the basis of information contained in the relevant state registers (Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs). Registration of an organization at the location of its separate subdivision is carried out on the basis of a special application. The tax authority is obliged to register the organization at the location of the separate subdivision within five days from the date of submission of all necessary documents. Articles 116 and 117 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation provide for sanctions, respectively, for violation by a taxpayer of the established deadline for filing an application for tax registration and for conducting activities by an organization or an individual entrepreneur without registration with a tax authority;

3) the use of cash registers (machines). If an economic entity makes payments for goods, works and services by means of cash or payment cards (both with the population and with organizations), he will have to use this technique. This regulation and its features are regulated federal law dated 22.05.2003 N 54-FZ "On the use of cash registers in the implementation of cash settlements and (or) settlements using payment cards". Violators of the law are subject to administrative liability measures in the form of a fine: on officials - from 30 to 40 minimum wages; for legal entities - from 300 to 400 minimum wages (Article 14.4 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation);

4) certification of goods (works, services). Many manufactured and sold goods, works and services are subject to mandatory certification, in accordance with the Federal Law of December 27, 2002 No. 184-FZ “On Technical Regulation”. Confirmation of conformity may be voluntary or mandatory. The subject of entrepreneurial activity should pay special attention, since violation of the rules of mandatory certification entails the imposition of an administrative fine: for officials - from 10 to 20 minimum wages with confiscation of objects of an administrative offense; for legal entities - from 200 to 300 minimum wages with confiscation of objects of an administrative offense (Article 19.19 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation);

5) accounting and tax accounting. The accounting procedure is regulated by Federal Law No. 129-FZ of November 21, 1996 “On Accounting” and the Regulations on Accounting and financial statements in RF. Heads of organizations and other persons responsible for the organization and maintenance of accounting, in case of evasion from accounting in the manner prescribed by law Russian Federation and normative acts of the bodies that regulate accounting, distortion of financial statements and failure to comply with the deadlines for their submission and publication are subject to administrative or criminal liability in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation.

6) other requirements of the legislation of the Russian Federation.

It is also possible to refer to the legislative restrictions successfully applied in a number of countries special punitive taxes(penalty tax), which apply to taxpayers in special cases. Penalty taxes include:

A tax for the unreasonable accumulation of corporate profits. It is used in cases where a corporation evades the distribution of dividends, uses the funds of dividends for purposes recognized as unreasonable, namely: for the subsequent provision of loans to shareholders of the corporation; to enable shareholders to use corporation funds for personal purposes; for investment in securities if this activity is non-traditional for the enterprise;

Tax on personal holding companies. Applied to limit the use of corporations as so-called checkbooks, i.e. corporations established With for the purpose of trading in securities for its founders or as “incorporated talent”, i.e. corporations established to manage the funds of its owner (artists, athletes, etc.).

The Tax Code of the Russian Federation consists of two parts: part one (general part) and part two (special or special part).

Part one of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation came into force on January 1, 1999. This part of the code establishes a system of taxes and fees, as well as general principles of taxation and payment of fees in the Russian Federation, including: types of taxes and fees levied in the Russian Federation; the grounds for the emergence (change, termination) and the procedure for fulfilling obligations to pay taxes and fees; the principles of establishing, enacting and terminating previously introduced taxes of subjects of the federation and local taxes; rights and obligations of taxpayers, tax authorities, tax agents, other participants in relations regulated by the legislation on taxes and fees; forms and methods of tax control; responsibility for committing tax offenses; the procedure for appealing against acts of tax authorities and actions (inaction) of their officials.

Part two of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation came into force on January 1, 2001. This part establishes specific taxes and fees to be levied, as well as a number of special tax regimes. For each tax, part two of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation defines the elements of taxation (object of taxation, tax base, taxable period, tax rate, procedure for calculating tax, procedure and terms for paying tax), if necessary tax incentives and the grounds for their use by the taxpayer, the procedure for declaring the tax. For each fee - payers and taxation elements in relation to specific fees. For each special tax regime - the conditions and procedure for its application, a special procedure for determining the elements of taxation, as well as the possibility of exemption from the obligation to pay certain taxes and fees provided for by part one of the Tax Code, the procedure for declaring the tax paid in connection with the application of a special tax regime.

At present, part of the second Tax Code of the Russian Federation establishes the following federal taxes and fees: VAT, excises, personal income tax (introduced from 01.01.2001), income tax, mineral extraction tax (introduced from 01.01.2002), fees for the use of objects of the animal world and for the use of objects of aquatic biological resources (introduced from 01.01. .2004), state duty, input tax (introduced from 01.01.2005).

Also, the provisions of the code establish regional taxes - transport tax(introduced from 01.01.2013), tax on gambling business, corporate property tax (introduced from 01.01.2004), and one local tax - land tax(introduced from 01.01.2005).

Part two of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation provides for the possibility for taxpayers to apply, along with common system taxation of the following special tax regimes: taxation systems for agricultural producers (ESKhN) (introduced from 01/01/2002), USN, taxation systems in the form of UTII for certain types of activities (introduced from 01/01/2003), taxation systems for the implementation of PSA (introduced from June 2003) and PSN (introduced from 01/01/2013).