Will there be a discount

The current law on non-profit non-governmental organizations (NGOs) may be relaxed. As Vedomosti writes, one of these days an improved bill will be submitted to the Duma, developed by a group led by First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Vladislav Surkov. This group was created by President Dmitry Medvedev after human rights activists complained to him about the antisocial law.

The bill prohibits the Ministry of Justice and its divisions from demanding documents from public activists that are not specified in the law (the list of such documents is now open).

In addition, a procedure is being introduced to “suspension of state registration” for three months if documents are submitted in improper form. In today's version of the law, NPOs can be closed forever for this. The threat to “national unity and identity, cultural heritage” will even be excluded from the list of reasons for refusing to register a foreign NPO.

The period for consideration of an application for registration of an NPO is reduced from a month to 14 days. For NPOs that do not have foreigners among their founders or sponsors, a simplified reporting regime will be introduced: they will only have to submit an application to the Ministry of Justice, but their annual income should not exceed 3 million rubles.