They don’t throw their own. They are thrown

The Russian authorities first did everything so that the economy fell under sanctions, and now they come up with how to save some other people

On October 12, it became known that the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs sent a letter to the Ministry of Finance with a request to once again help representatives of business that fell under sanctions. According to Vedomosti, the head of the RSPP Alexander Shokhin proposed to weaken the anti -ohhhora legislation, since the companies that have entered the sanctions lists are trying to quickly rebuild; And this can only be done through a change in property structures, financing and management, which ultimately leads to the need to pay additional taxes. In addition, companies are faced with problems in obtaining the necessary documents abroad, when it is necessary to fulfill the law on deofshorization. So the law must be corrected by turning to the injured business face, says Shokhin.

So far, the Ministry of Finance thinks what to do with this initiative. But this is far from the only offer to help some representatives of Russian business, constrained by external sanctions. Many of them arose after the publication in April of the sanctions list, which affected 14 companies and 24 citizens of Russia, among which were Igor Rotenberg, Victor Vekselberg, Oleg Deripaska and others. Over the past month alone, it was proposed to give them priority during public procurement and even allow to sell beer around the clock in aluminum banks from Rusal.

The state began to protect their citizens from sanctions four years ago. New correspondents recalled the main stages along this path and learned that experts think about the effectiveness of antisancation measures.

Earned - do not pay

In April 2017, a law was signed that exempted Russians from among foreign tax residents from income tax on foreign income-even if, due to the ban on entry into the United States and the European Union, they spend more than 183 days provided for by the Tax Code. Of all the defendants in the sanctions lists, only businessmen could use this benefit, the military must be tax residents of Russia, and officials are forbidden to own banking accounts and business abroad. As Kommersant noted, businessmen had the opportunity not to pay personal income tax in Russia before, and only the tax resident of Switzerland Gennady Timchenko, who, in his own words, was publicly supported by the sanctions, because of the sanctions, “actually became a disadvantage”.

Top secret purchases

In November 2017, the government allowed state -owned companies until July 1, 2018 not to disclose information about suppliers and contractors receiving contracts, which, according to Vedomosti interlocutors in state -owned companies, should have helped protect the schemes for bypassing US sanctions. A few days before, the government closed all purchases for the Ministry of Defense, the FSB and foreign intelligence services to the same date to also protect their suppliers from secondary sanctions for “significant transactions” in the defense sector.

Concealment as a gift

Right under the new one, 2018, Vladimir Putin, a package of amendments was signed, which give the right to legal entities and banks under sanctions, on the basis of the government’s decision not to disclose some of the important information about their transactions. True, if the decision regarding the first was issued in January, then the draft decision that will allow the bank in respect of which sanctions were introduced and his leadership, hiding information about himself about himself limited by law has not yet been approved. But they say that this is about to happen.

Everything secret becomes even more secret

In January of this year, the government issued another resolution in the framework of the law on concealing information about major transactions. The new document allowed not to publish data on transactions with persons under sanctions, as well as transactions related to the implementation of state defense order. The opportunity not to disclose data on suppliers, as Interfax reported with reference to Spark-marketing, then about 20% of the largest customers in Russia took advantage of.

Alien is not necessary

A law was signed, which gave the president the right to introduce a restriction on the import of goods, “the countries of the origin of which are unfriendly foreign states,” as well as for the supply of Russian products to these countries. Initially, the law implied prohibitions on the import of foreign drugs (the Vice Speaker of the State Duma, Peter Tolstoy, offered all Russians to be treated with hawthorn and oak bark) and to work of foreign experts, but after the wave of criticism, these points were removed from the law.

More departments

In the summer, the government issued an order on the creation of sanctions in the Ministry of Finance. The ministry reported on its appearance at the end of September. It is assumed that the new department will have to coordinate the development of response restrictions and measures to reduce the negative impact from foreign sanctions, but so far there have been no initiatives from it in the public field.

In the summer, a package of laws on the creation of special administrative areas in Russia was signed. It is understood that this is a certain alternative to foreign offshore zones for companies under sanctions. According to the document, only foreign companies with an investment volume of at least 50 million rubles in six months can submit an application for residency in offshore, where the dividend tax rate is set at 0%. The residents of Russian offshores, as expected, can become Oleg Deripaska, UC Rusal and En+ (the transfer decision on the transfer of the company's directors has already been made).

Comments

Andrey Movchan

Economist, director of the Economic Policy program of the Moscow Center of Carnegie

- It is impossible to help the company under the ban that is engaged in international activities. These companies already have enough money, they do not need monetary assistance. The level of tax burden for them is still not so high, and the benefits of their condition will not affect in any way.

The only right type of assistance to businessmen could be the transformation of Russia into a normal country, in which everything works regardless of being under sanctions, but this, as you can see, is not done.

If a person confiscates a house in America, how will he help him that he was allowed not to pay personal income tax in Russia? The sanctions are that a person is prohibited from placing assets, as well as owning business and property in certain countries, and a decrease in the tax burden in Russia does not change anything. A number of measures were not aimed at compensating for the damage from the sanctions, but to give a handout to people who fell under sanctions to show that the Kremlin does not leave them. But directly with the sanctions, this is not connected in any way, nothing in common.

The classification of information about major transactions also has nothing to do with sanctions. Find information about the transaction, even if it does not open, is very easy. Information about the GRU staff was found in a short time, and she, I believe, is also not disclosed. And then, what's the difference? Well, you closed the data from those who impose sanctions, but they also impose sanctions not for transactions in Russia, but for some other things. Nobody will also hide their counterparties, because for this counterpart the price is already too high. If the connections are revealed (as a result of the investigation of the conditional Bellingcat), this counterparty will incur huge losses. People under the sanctions come and go, and the counterparty needs to somehow exist further, so in the end no one will work normal with the company under sanctions.

The introduction of "offshores" also remains at the level of declarations. I have not yet heard of any company that would declare in its fiscal reporting that it is a resident of Russian offshore. Moreover, why are companies Russian? There are Tbilisi, Panama, even Kyrgyz offshores - you never know offshore in the world ...

Speaking globally, then all this is nonsense, all these measures have nothing to do with sanctions. This is either handouts to people whose loyalty need to be increased, or this is the use of sanctions as a topic in order to carry out operations that they themselves need.

Alexander Losev

General Director of the Management Company "Sputnik - Capital Management"

- I do not see any working measures and do not understand that the authorities, deputies and business have been doing all the time since Trump signed the law (“On countering the opponents of America through sanctions”) on August 2 of last year, because they began to respond only in April this year. And what is proposed is, in fact, not support. There can be crushing products with tractors, but nothing else.

We have any counter -sanctions, any import substitution had to begin with the creation of our own investment loan and development banks.

I believe that it was necessary to create a state depositary-changing structure and hide transactions there for all companies of the defense industry and their counterparties-suppliers. This structure would be a nominal holder of shares that belong to their real owners in order not to disclose their names to the outside world.

It was necessary [before] to transfer calculations from the dollar zone to the euro zone. There was a time for this, but no one was doing this. The fact that discussions are underway in the government is now from the series “Better late than never”: the year is already lost in any case, and the pressure on Europe is growing.

Now the elections will go to Congress, and in November there will be a revision of sanctions: the very law on "counteracting the opponents of America." This law stipulates that every year the report of the Ministry of Finance, intelligence and other bodies will be heard in the Congress on how the sanctions acted and what the effect from them, on the basis of which the congressmen will make their decision. Roughly speaking, by the end of November we will have new sanctions, less than two months remain to come up with something, and the deputies are engaged in some kind of nonsense. I believe that we did nothing. And what has been done is all imitation, and we do not even have normal proposals for counter -sanctions.

The material was prepared with the participation of Arnold Khachaturov