Tax consulting / tax litigation

Taxes and Finance

Tax Practice is the Professional Priority of the Group

The primary goal of the practice is engineering and providing the client with effective law tools, rational legal frameworks, complex of tax planning systems, simplifying control over the tax computation and payment.

The process of tax planning includes the stage of tax audit of the previous periods and the stage of optimization of the following.

It is well known that the practice of tax planning is very popular at the periods of regular increase of company’s debt on tax obligations, during the first signs of company’s possible bankruptcy, during procedures of implementation. The tax planning practice of the Group gains experience of certain branches and is developing in certain branch specializations. The practice is an integral part of many processes, including business restructuring, mastering of new types of enterprise activity, project investment engineering, M&A deals. Thus, since 2001 we have successfully finished dozens of specialized tax planning projects in the fuel and energy complex. Interests in disputes with the Ministry of Finance, tax and antimonopoly bodies have been represented in courts of all instances.

The Group has extensive experience of providing tax services in consulting:
•    Russian enterprises inter alia real estate investors and real estate managers and trade companies. General taxation including features of tax situation for real estate lease and sale,
•    Double taxation,
•    International toll transactions,
•    Natural persons.

These services include tax due diligence which results in advice with practical recommendations on tax planning.
In particular main areas of tax consulting developed by our professionals refer to tracing tax stocks of legal entities on the following matters:
•    Tax over-collection by taxing authorities,
•    Tax overpayment caused by a wrong estimation of taxation base,
•    Tax overpayment caused by unused fiscal incentive,
•    Tracing penalties assigned to organizations which cannot be collected through legal proceedings.

We are experienced in prejudicial and judicial support of tax inspections inter alia resisting taxing authorities in:
•    Estimation of non-operating income and income tax reduction,
•    Features of tax charge of income tax calculation for power delivery to natural persons,
•    The order of debtor relief and features of income tax calculation and value added tax,
•    Property tax and mobilization property tax,
•    Features of tax estimation of income tax in bill business,
•    Liquidation of juridical persons by taxing authorities,
•    Declaration of legal transactions invalidity of legal entities by taxing authorities.

Certain areas of our practice are design and realization of ways of defending importers in the situation of customs value adjustment of goods imported to the Russian Federation, particularly taxation issues.

Tax arbitration

Thus, in particular our lawyers settled tax claims under the property tax advanced by the state to one of the largest electric power systems in the Northwest region.
The matter of the dispute was a property tax privilege of mobilization imposition for previous tax periods.

Decision of taxing authorities to dismiss provided tax claims and recovery of the property tax charge was recognized void despite the unfavourable judicial and arbitrary practice on the matter. The result of trials was that the client was released from the obligations to pay additional charge of the tax, the penalties and the fine for the total of more than 180 mln rbl. Earlier the client was released from paying taxes, penalties and fines at the rate of 35 mln rbl. in disputes with the Interregional Inspection of the Federal Tax Service of the RF.

Our lawyers successfully represented interests in disputes with taxing authorities of a large Central Federal District energy company, that is a part of OAO MRSK Center.
Disputes include VAT offset and compensation, accounts receivable amortization, illegal additional charge of tax, return of unduly taxes collected, disputes with the Ministry of Finance of the RF budgetary legislation, wrongful acts of antimonopoly bodies successful appeal.

In one of the latest disputes with taxing authorities «about penalties and fines amortization on re-structured taxes» for a large Russian production and marketing power company of the Volga region courts delivered the judgment in favour of our client for 500 mln rbl.

A subsidiary of the Russian-Mongolian enterprise Mongolrustsvetmet was  successfully defended in the case of “Сompensation of export VAT at supplying raw material for a metallurgy industry».

Partners’ Experience:

Our partners supported tax disputes for the largest oil and gas industries, power companies, food companies, trade and export organizations, enterprises of engineering industry, film industry, IT and computers.