The XIII Siberian Tax Forum successfully held in Kemerovo

On 12 October, the city of Kemerovo hosted the XIII Siberian Tax Forum organised by Nalogoved journal and the Law Institute of Kemerovo State University (“KemSU”) with the support of Pepeliaev Group's team of experts.

At the start of the event, the guests were greeted by Yuri Zhuravlyov, KemSU’s Vice-Principal for Strategic Development, Stanislav Gavrilov, Director of the Law Institute of KemSU and Egor Lysenko, Head of Pepeliaev Group’s Siberian Office.

At the session devoted to splitting up businesses, the participants discussed the financial and legal aspects of the relevant court cases along with the criteria for split-ups to be recognised as admissible, the grounds for criminal prosecution, the calculation of VAT and many other matters of topical interest. Among the participants of the discussion were Viktor Batsyev, Full State Counsellor of Justice 3d Class, ex-Chairman of the Tax Panel and member of the Presidium of the Supreme Commercial (‘Arbitration’) Court, Elena Isaenko, Judge of the Tax Panel of the Kemerovo Region Commercial Court, Elena Latyshenko, Business Commissioner of Kemerovo Region, and Vadim Zaripov, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Nalogoved.

Andrey Potapov, Presiding Judge of the Kemerovo Region Commercial Court, delivered a special report in the session “How a company in bankruptcy calculates VAT”.

The second session was devoted to tax schemes and tax crimes. The participants discussed how the new article 54.1 of the Tax Code affects the position of taxpayers, the temporal scope of the new rules and how they correlate with the concept of an unjustified tax benefit, whether the taxpayer may count on a full tax reconstruction and other issues. They also analysed case law involving tax crimes. Among the participants of the discussion were: Irina Ivanova, Judge of Kemerovo City Central District Court, Rashit Zainutdinov, Assistant Professor of the Criminal Law and Criminal Science Department of KemSU, Farida Suleimanova, Tax Expert, and Leonid Kravchinsky, Partner at Pepeliaev Group.

At the tax administration session, the participants examined the issues, among others, of foreign currency control, the interaction of law enforcement and tax authorities during audits and whether tax debts may be collected from chief accountants, CFOs and consultants. Among participants of the discussion were Vladimir Sokolov, Head of Legal in Novosibirsk Regional Department of the Federal Tax Service, Vladislav Syrbo, Assistant Professor of KemSU's Civil Law Department, and Ekaterina Martemianova, Associate at Pepeliaev Group's Siberian Office.

To close the forum Konstantin Sasov, Senior Associate at Pepeliaev Group, held a workshop titled “Employees’ evidence, tricks of interrogators and the role of the legal counsel”.

The XIII Siberian Tax Forum gathered an audience of more than 200 people.