#1. Amendments in Legislation Enforced in 2018

The tax advantage is defined as the reduction of the tax burden due to tax base reductions, granted tax deductions, tax benefits, application of lower tax rates, and the granted right for tax refund (credit) or tax reimbursement from the budget.

The New Year brought numerous changes, particularly in taxation. Changes were introduced to various chapters of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, i. e. Corporate Profit Tax, Personal Income Tax, Simplified Tax System, Insurance Premium, Property Tax and many others. This article will cover those amendments that apply to the majority of legal entities and individuals in the Russian Federation.

In autumn, potential changes began to shape up, and by the end of the year the State Duma received the draft law On Amendments to the Federal Law on Foreign Exchange Regulation. The key interest of these amendments was the status of the foreign exchange resident and the expanded list of authorized foreign exchange transactions.

At the end of the passing 2017 year, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation held a plenary session and adopted Resolution of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation Plenum No. 53 dated December 21, 2017 on the matters of subsidiary liability for people with significant control over the debtor upon bankruptcy.

Under the current legislation, any crime is punished with the criminal liability. However, crimes pose different levels of danger to the community, e. g. some crimes endanger lives and well-being, and their consequences are often impossible to compensate, while others endanger state economic interests and assets, and damages imposed thereby may be compensated.

2017 was abundant with conceptual approaches to tax control developed by tax authorities both for applicable approaches (methods) and for the introduction of execution limits to taxpayers’ rights to apply methods of tax saving.

In 2015 and 2016, several cases based on pricing regulation norms were already heard by arbitration courts, however, they mainly covered either rights of local tax authorities to apply provisions of transfer legislation when proving unjustified tax advantages, or conditions of qualifying parties as interdependent.

On December 20, 2017, Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), and President Trump shortly thereafter signed it. This law, most of which will become effective as soon as January 1, 2018, dramatically changes the tax environment of the United States.

Fast development of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in recent years would have been impossible without the systematic renewal of the existing outdated equipment, which, in turn, required multi-million state budget injections as part of the Armaments 2020 priority procurement program.