Pepeliaev Group's lawyers participated in the research to practice conference dedicated to: “Conflicts in tax relationships and ways to mitigate them”. The event, which was held in Kazan on 20 March 2025, was organised by the Russian Federal Tax Service jointly with Lebedev Russian State University of Jurisprudence.
Managing Partner Sergey Pepeliaev, Partner Anton Nikiforov and Senior Associate Petr Popov participated in the panel session “Ways to improve the pre-trial settlement of tax disputes”, which was moderated by Viktor Batsiev, deputy head of the Federal Tax Service.
In his speech, Sergey Pepeliaev draw the audience’s attention to challenges in how new high-tech forms of tax control and, specifically, tax monitoring are developing. He raised the issue that forms of control are being duplicated when field tax audits are scheduled, without any grounds, in relation to a number of participants in tax monitoring. Well-grounded opinions do not fully contribute to reducing conflicts. Another issue lies with the Federal Tax Service releasing guidelines for information to be submitted in the form of “services of information exchange” which do not need to be registered with the Ministry of Justice. These guidelines are in essence just the procedure for how tax returns should be filled in.
“As a consequence, the administrative process, including administrative procedures of tax control, is losing its value. This leads to the rights of controlled persons being violated," added Mr Pepeliaev. "Hence, dozens of so-called 'services' that are being foisted on companies amount to nothing more than a single great ‘disservice’”'.
Anton Nikiforov stressed the potential for increasing the quality of higher tax authorities' consideration of taxpayers' appeals. He proposed a range of measures to that end. For instance, specialists who consider appeals could form a separate department, which would report directly to the Central Administration of the Federal Tax Service. The increased quality could also be underpinned by independent criteria being introduced for assessing the department's performance.
“It is essential for the extraterritoriality principle to be introduced when appeals are considered and for the professional community to be involved (an independent selective audit of the resolutions adopted, with independent experts taking part in how an appeal is considered)," Anton stressed. "Moreover, the declarative procedure for a taxpayer to be involved in the process of an appeal being considered and joint professional discussions of administrative and judicial decisions are factors of genuine importance”.
During the discussion, Petr Popov pointed out that much time is required for reconciliatory procedures and other procedural tools used to determine factors that matter for taxation. During that time, limitation periods for imposing fines and collecting debts continue to run. Petr proposed that a well-balanced solution be achieved under which procedures will not be artificially accelerated so that the limitation period is met to the detriment of uncovering the truth in a case and the quality of the decision that is issued.
“For instance, the decision-making procedure could be divided into three component parts," he suggested. "The first component will be to identify the fact of an offence and what its essential elements are. The second component involves specifying the essential elements of the offence in more detail, such as the form of fault or if there are mitigating circumstances. Lastly, the third component requires a separate procedure for agreeing how the amounts to be collected will be paid in instalments. The current procedure for payments to be made in instalments is extremely complicated and, in practice, it is simply not fit for purpose”.
It is worth stressing that the event in Kazan is the first stage of the research to practice conference on issues surrounding effective tax administration. The next events in the cycle will take place between April and June 2025 in Krasnoyarsk, Tomsk and Perm. The conference offers a platform in the field of tax law for a wide range of opinions to be exchanged.
