"Opora Rossii" complained to the Prosecutor General about the practice of tax authorities on international transport

The public association “Opora Rossii” complained to Prosecutor General Alexander Gutsan about the actions of the tax authorities, who changed the practice of taxing the income of foreign organizations from international transportation in order to increase collections of funds from exporters. Vedomosti reported this.

The head of the organization, Alexander Kalinin, asked the official in a letter to provide supervisory support for one of the disputes on this issue in the Supreme Court. We are talking about the additional charge of income tax, which Russian companies supposedly had to pay for foreign counterparties in past years when exporting agricultural products.

This position is associated with two contradictory norms that were in force in the Tax Code until 2025. One directly stated that organizations must pay tax for foreign contractors who carry out international transportation. Another argued that if a foreign business provides services in Russia and does not have a permanent representative office here, then there is no need to pay for it.

By now, this gap has been eliminated, and Russian organizations are still required to pay 10 percent of each individual operation described in the first norm.

However, they now began to be required to pay taxes for previous years, when uncertainty remained and practices were developing in favor of exporters. Then both the tax service itself and the courts recognized their right not to pay taxes on the profits of foreign contractors. This procedure was also enshrined in a letter from the Ministry of Finance of 2014.

Ten years later, the financial department published a new letter in which it changed the approach to the exact opposite, and then a reversal of practice began. As a result, businesses are faced with polar interpretations of the rules by courts even within the same district, which creates legal uncertainty. In addition, foreign carriers have begun to assess tax risks in Russia higher and are trying to avoid Russian jurisdiction.

General Director of Novosibirskkhleboproduct JSC Sergei Sokolov notes that farmers have faced a double blow this year. Difficulties with shipping in the Azov-Black Sea basin seriously hamper exports, and therefore income, while the tax authorities require large sums to be paid to them.