Elena Sycheva: Rent a currency

The President of Russia signed the law on amendments to the articles of the Federal Law “On currency regulation and currency control” and the Code of Administrative Offenses. The document was developed by the Government of the Russian Federation, adopted by the State Duma on October 25 this year, and then approved by the Federation Council on November 8. The new law was adopted to improve the administration of the revenues of the budget system, as well as to increase the efficiency of working with receivables for income.

“Federal law by authorized banks is given the opportunity to refuse customers to conduct foreign exchange operations if they contradict the requirements of the currency legislation of the Russian Federation, as well as in case of failure to submit documents, submit unreliable documents or submit documents that do not meet the established requirements,” the Kremlin website said.

The right to limit foreign exchange operations for banks was even before the adoption of new amendments to the corresponding Federal Law and the Code of Administrative Offenses.

“The bank could refuse to conduct a currency operation only if there is a suspicion that it is committed in order to launder the income received by criminal means, or to finance terrorism,” TASS recalls.

The Russian Newspaper clarifies that the law will enter into force only in May 2018, 180 days after its publication. According to the publication, the new changes will be directed against the illegal withdrawal of money abroad, when a fictitious trading contract is concluded, but in fact the supply of goods or services does not occur.

“For example, the contracts do not indicate clear terms of repatriation of funds, and then they are repeatedly extended, which makes it possible for violators to evade responsibility. The amendments consolidate the obligation to indicate the exact deadlines and inform banks about them, introduce individual fines for officials for violation of this norm, ” the publication said.

Earlier, one of the authors of the document, a member of the State Duma Committee on the financial market, Mikhail Gulevsky, stated that the purpose of the bill is to simplify foreign exchange control. “The adoption of these norms will entail a reduction in excess load on banks to control the operations of their customers - individuals abroad and will facilitate for citizens who are abroad, interaction with currency control bodies,” RBC deputy quoted.

It is interesting that all Russian citizens include residents, except for those who live abroad for more than 183 days a year. The latter will be exempted from restrictions on foreign exchange operations.

It should also be noted that earlier the Central Bank issued the instructions “On the procedure for submitting to residents and non -residents to authorized banks confirming documents and information in the implementation of currency transactions, on unified forms of accounting and reporting on foreign exchange operations, the procedure and terms of their submission”.

“The document introduces an order that excludes the need to submit to residents of documents related to currency transactions under contracts (contracts) concluded with non -residents, the amount of the obligations of which in equivalent is less than 200 thousand rubles,” the regulator said in the accompanying message.