Officially

President

Signed the federal law “On Amendments to Part Two of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation and some other legislative acts of the Russian Federation on taxes and fees.” The law provides for amendments to Chapter 23 “Individual Income Tax” and Chapter 25 “Organizational Income Tax” of the Tax Code. The changes being made clarify the procedure for calculating personal income tax on transactions with securities, the procedure for determining the tax base for corporate income tax during their reorganization, and establish a more preferential procedure for calculating depreciation.

Departments

The Federal State Statistics Service reported that inflation in Russia for five months amounted to 7.3%. Over the five months of last year, inflation was 5.3%.

Army

Colonel General Vladimir Bakin has been appointed the new commander of the Moscow Military District. Army General Ivan Efremov, who previously held this position, has been appointed head of the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. Vladimir Bakin served in the troops of the Carpathian, Transbaikal, Siberian and Volga-Ural military districts, as well as in the Baltic Fleet.

Federation Council

At the meeting on Wednesday, as part of the "government hour", the issue of legislative support for the development of financial markets in Russia will be considered. The head of the Federal Service for Financial Markets, Oleg Vyugin, will make a report on this topic. In addition, members of the Federation Council will have to ratify the agreement between Russia and Kazakhstan on the development of cooperation on the use of the Baikonur complex and consider a number of amendments to the Budget and Tax Codes.

State Duma

At a faction meeting with the participation of Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, the United Russia Duma would like to raise the issue of execution of the current year's budget, as well as the procedure for forming the federal budget for 2006. The leader of the faction, State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov emphasized that at a meeting of the chamber council, a government bill was discussed that provided for the redistribution of additional budget revenues.

Parties

The head of the Union of Right Forces party, Nikita Belykh, is ready to give up the leading places on the party’s pre-election list of candidates for the State Duma elections in 2007 to Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Mikhail Kasyanov. “Both the party and I are interested in winning the Duma elections in 2007, so if necessary and the only tool for this is the appearance of such a heavy-handed figure, I will propose it myself,” Mr. Belykh said.

According to news agencies and own information