Category: News for business
Important! Increase of fines for violations in the field of personal data processing
Dear colleagues,
please note that starting from May 30, 2025, amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation will enter into force, which will significantly increase fines for legal entities and individual entrepreneurs for failure to submit a notification to the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) concerning the processing of personal data of their employees (as well as other categories of persons whose data was received and is subject to processing). In this case, the processing of personal data means any actions with data, including collection, recording, systematization, storage, updating, distribution, deletion.
These changes are relevant for all employers, since by default any organization or individual entrepreneur with employees processes the personal data of employees (full name, passport data, salary data, etc.), and therefore must be registered accordingly in the register of operators of Roskomnadzor.
Prior to the aforementioned changes entering into force, organizations committing a violation of such rules could be subject to a warning or a fine of up to 5 000 rubles in accordance with Article 19.5 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation. In practice, however, the supervisory authority would usually limit itself to requiring notification to be submitted within the specified time period.
Starting from May 30, 2025, the fines for failure to submit a notification to Roskomnadzor will be as follows:
– for company officials and individual entrepreneurs – from 30 000 to 50 000 rubles;
– for legal entities – from 100 000 to 300 000 rubles.
Therefore, if your company has not yet sent the relevant notification to Roskomnadzor, it must be submitted as soon as possible. You can check whether your company is included in the register of Roskomnadzor by following this link.
The notification can be sent to the department on paper, through the Unified Identification and Authentication System on the internet Portal of Government Services, or in electronic form using a qualified electronic signature.
We also recommend that you read the department’s comments and answers to frequently asked questions.
We are ready to help prepare a personal data processing notification and support you in promptly sending it to Roskomnadzor.
We will be happy to answer your questions.
Your contacts on this topic:
Maria Matrossowa
Nadezhda Maskaeva
VAT on e-services – Changes
We would like to draw your attention to the recent changes in tax legislation introducing new rules for charging and paying VAT.
Currently, and until September 30, 2022, there is a procedure for paying VAT on electronic services provided by foreign suppliers, in which the foreign supplier must independently register with the Federal Tax Service of the Russian Federation, obtain a TIN, submit a VAT return and pay it. From 01.10.2022 the Federal Tax Service and the Ministry of Finance presented the former (used until 2019) procedure for the payment of VAT from electronic services. In a letter dated 08.08.2022, the Federal Tax Service also explained the changes to be introduced.
This means that VAT is paid and recovered by the Russian organization receiving the services as a tax agent. At the same time, if a registered foreign provider of electronic services also provides non-electronic services, there is no tax agent liability for Russian buyers. However, the buyer has the right to pay VAT on such services himself (Letter of the Federal Tax Service of the Russian Federation dated 24.04.2019 №СД-4-3/7937). In practice, it is easier and more convenient for a Russian organization buying any services from a foreign supplier to transfer VAT to the Russian budget as a tax agent.
For all payments made to a foreign counterparty before 1 October 2022 under the old rules, the buyer is entitled to reimburse the VAT paid to the foreign seller.
However, these changes do not exempt foreign service providers from having to register with the FTS. The procedure for this action has also undergone changes; now a foreign organization can get registered by opening a bank account.
The principle is set out in Articles 83-84 of the Tax Code as amended by Federal Law No. 120-FZ of 1 May 2022.
The application for registration is completed, certified with an Enhanced Qualified Electronic Signature by an authorized person of the Russian bank and sent to the Federal Tax Service. Once the foreign organization has been registered, the certificate of registration is also sent electronically to the bank.
Banks have been obliged to check the registration status of a foreign client in the Open and Publicly Available Information of the Unified State Register of Foreign Entities and, if no information is available in the register, to send an application for registration.
As a reminder, tax registration and tax payment are different processes. As the regulators have not yet provided any other explanations, we recommend to maintain a conservative stance and continue to file zero VAT returns for foreign entities registered with the FTS, even considering the transition to the tax payment procedure via a tax agent.
We will be happy to answer your questions!
Contacts:
Eugenia Chernova
Olga Kireyeva
Single Tax Account
On 14 July 2022, Law No. 263-FZ on Amendments to Part One and Part Two of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation was published.
The main change is the introduction of the concepts of a Single Tax Account (STA) and a Single Tax Payment (STP), as well as new practices of tax payment administration.
The new rules come into force from 01.01.2023 and are binding for all taxpayers.
The single tax account is maintained for every natural person and every organization that is a taxpayer, payer of charges, payer of insurance contributions and/or a tax agent.
Thus, the settlement of each individual tax, contribution, or other charge is turned into an aggregate liability to the tax authority. The aggregate liability for payment is formed on the payer’s STA on the basis of submitted tax declarations, revised tax declarations, and notifications on the calculated amounts of taxes, fees, advance payments of taxes, insurance premiums, and decisions of the tax authority.
The law introduces a single date for submission of tax returns and notifications – the 25th of the month following the reporting month, for quarterly taxes – the last month of the reporting quarter.
| Tax, contribution | Old date | New date |
| Social contributions | 15 | 25 |
| Excise | 15, 25 | 25 |
| VAT | 25 | 25 |
| Income tax | 28 | 25 |
| Mining tax | 30 | 25 |
| Property tax | 30 | 25 |
At the same time the law introduces a single date of tax payment.
| Tax, contribution | Old date | New date |
| Social contributions | 15 | 28 |
| Excise | 25 | 28 |
| VAT | 25 | 28 |
| Mining tax | 25 | 28 |
| Income tax | 28 | 28 |
| Property tax | 30 | 28 |
| Land tax | 30 | 28 |
| Transport tax | 30 | 28 |
| Personal income tax | Date of income payment | 28 |
The advantages of the new procedure for the administration of tax payments are outlined by the Federal Tax Service on its website:
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1 payment + 2 details in the payment (INN and payment sum);
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1 payment deadline per month;
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1 balance for the whole STA;
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1 day for return order
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1 document of collection for the bank;
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1 day for unblocking the account
We will talk about the practical aspects of the new procedure in future CIs on this topic.
The first practical tip is to carry out a reconciliation with the Federal Tax Service for all potential taxes, contributions and other payments before 01.01.2023 to form a clear picture of liabilities and overpayments in terms of individual obligations, and to recover any overpayments that may be recoverable. After all, after the transition to STA, the evidence base will be blurred.
Contacts:
Eugenia Chernova
Olga Kireyeva
Business with Russia? Sure!
In March, www.karenina.de published an interview with Dr. Georg Schneider, “Geschäfte mit Russland? Aber ja!”. Journalist Peter Kopf asked the General Director of swilar a number of questions about opportunities and problems of business-cooperation with Russia.
The key issues of the interview:
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Whether import substitution policy in Russia is a problem for German companies;
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Whether it is possible to say that the state runs the economy in Russia;
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How German companies may use the huge gap which exists in Russia between individual and serial production;
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How to gain the trust of business partners in Russia and why it is so important to conclude a framework agreement;
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Whether banks hinder German companies from doing business in Russia;
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How customs issues affect business;
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How risky it is to invest in Russia at the moment;
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U.S. sanctions and the rate of their impact on German-Russian business;
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Pharmaceutical industry and the Sputnik V vaccine as the oil of tomorrow – fantastic opportunities for economic cooperation.
The full text of the interview is available on the website. Enjoy reading!
For reference
KARENINA www.karenina.de is the online edition of the German-Russian discussion forum “St. Petersburg Dialogue”, which began to develop during the pandemic. The goal of the online platform is to establish internal communication between forum members and working groups, as well as to make the association, founded in 2001, visible to the outside world through its own journalistic activities