A draft on the liberalization of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on a number of economic crimes has been submitted to the State Duma

The Russian government has submitted a draft law to the State Duma, which proposes, in particular, to reduce the maximum terms of imprisonment for tax evasion and a number of other tax crimes. The project involves the abolition of criminal prosecution for certain tax crimes in the event of full payment of arrears, penalties and fines. Document published on websiteState Duma.

The bill provides for a reduction in the maximum term of imprisonment for tax evasion (Article 199 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and failure to fulfill the duties of a tax agent (199.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) on an especially large scale (more than 45 million rubles) from six to five years.

The Cabinet of Ministers also proposes to reduce the maximum term for concealing funds or property of an organization or individual entrepreneur, at the expense of which taxes must be collected (Article 199.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), on an especially large scale from seven to five years.

In addition, it is proposed to reduce the maximum term of imprisonment from four to three years for the evasion of an insured organization from paying insurance premiums for compulsory social insurance against industrial accidents and occupational diseases to the state non-budgetary fund (Article 199.4 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

On April 27, the President of Russia instructed the government to prepare amendments to decriminalize tax crimes, subject to full compensation for damages by the violator and mitigation of penalties for a number of tax crimes following a meeting with members of Delovaya Rossiya. As Kommersant found out, the implementation of the president’s order was delayed due to disagreements between departments.

For more information about the amendments, see Kommersant’s article “Penalty only for yourself.”

Erdni Kagaltynov