| The financial recovery of companies will become a banal debt collection The other day, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov signed a decree transferring to the liquidated Ministry of Taxes and Duties the right to represent the interests of the state in bankruptcy cases. In practice, this means that instead of financial recovery of enterprises that find themselves in a difficult situation, the state will first of all look for opportunities to collect debts from the organization.
Lost in the new pyramid of executive power among the new departments, services and agencies, the Federal Service for Financial Recovery (FSFR) was the “luckiest” of all. Its functions were actually transferred to the antagonist department. The direct interest of tax officials is to receive unpaid taxes to the budget. The FSFO, on the contrary, tried to save the enterprise by introducing a financial recovery procedure. Now tax authorities have the right to independently send a resolution to the bailiff to collect tax at the expense of the debtor’s property. If the property cannot be found and seized, then tax authorities will now be able to independently file a lawsuit to declare the debtor bankrupt. From now on, only a petition from the regional government or local government to introduce financial recovery, external management, or conclude a settlement agreement can now save an enterprise experiencing temporary difficulties from bankruptcy.
Why this “castling” of departments was started becomes clear if we remember how amendments to the bankruptcy law were adopted last year. At one stage of their discussion in the Duma, the president blocked the bill. He motivated by the fact that the document should maximally strengthen the role of the state in the bankruptcy procedure, since the norms of bankruptcy legislation have traditionally been used for the absorption and redistribution of property. Apparently, it seemed to the president that in the final version of the law, the role of the state was not strengthened to the maximum.
The despondent employees of the Ministry of Taxation, which was being transformed into a federal service, reacted with great enthusiasm to the unexpected expansion of powers. The personnel structure is already being regrouped to create a special department that would deal with bankruptcy cases. Irina SKLYAROVA |
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