New changes are being prepared for special administrative districts – Kommersant

Further fine-tuning of the regime of special administrative regions (SAR), as followed from yesterday’s discussion at the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum, in addition to the possibility of “moving” companies from abroad through incorporation, will be carried out in the direction of simplifying the procedure for “moving”. Thus, it is planned to extend the period of “double registration” up to five years, and the possibility of recognizing the decision on “moving” not only by the meeting of shareholders is also being considered. More significant changes can be expected from international personal funds, which are not currently in the SAR: they are considering the possibility of reducing the requirement to transfer assets by an order of magnitude – from 5 billion to 500 million rubles.

At the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum, officials and experts discussed the further fine-tuning of the regime of special administrative districts on the Oktyabrsky Islands in the Kaliningrad Region and Russky Islands in Primorye. As Ilya Torosov, the first deputy head of the Ministry of Economy, said, the department plans to revise the requirements for international personal funds for their “moving” to the SAR. Recall that the possibility of registering lifetime or posthumous funds there, which manage transferred or inherited property, has been provided since last year, but, as the official noted, now there are no such funds in the SAR.

In this regard, the Ministry of Economy is considering the possibility of reducing the amount of assets transferred to the international personal fund from the current 5 billion to 500 million rubles.

According to Tatyana Kuzmina, First Vice President of Gazprombank, this mechanism also requires the regulation of the taxation of international personal funds: now “any income of the beneficiary of a personal fund is taxable in full without deducting, for example, acquisition costs,” so it is worth equating the receipt of property and the benefits of this personal fund in terms of taxation to gift or inheritance between close relatives. “There are questions, we are working to ensure the equivalence of conditions both for traditional inheritance and for the use of personal funds,” Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Sazanov noted, stating that it is necessary to create conditions for such funds throughout the country, without reference to the SAR.

According to Ilya Torosov, his department is also working on the introduction of an incorporation mechanism, that is, the creation of new companies when the classic “change of residence permit” is impossible or significantly difficult and subject to the transfer of at least 800 million rubles. assets. It should be noted that a bill providing for such a mechanism, but developed by deputies, is now awaiting consideration in the State Duma (see “Kommersant” of May 11). Otherwise, the planned changes look like fine-tuning existing tools, in particular, it is planned to extend the period for exclusion of international companies from the foreign register from two to five years, so that the business has enough time to eliminate “double registration”. This is due to the fact that, due to sanctions, companies in some cases will not be able to obtain the documents necessary for “departure” from a foreign jurisdiction.

It is planned to expand the possibilities of simplified “moving” – without the necessary documents, providing only copies of them.

Now redomiciliation is allowed based only on the decision of the general meeting of shareholders – according to Ilya Torosov, about 40% of those who “moved” last year used this procedure. However, the Ministry of Economy is thinking about giving the government special powers to recognize in 2023-2024 decisions on redomiciliation to the SAR, taken by the boards of directors or the majority of beneficiaries of companies, due to the fact that the decision is not always possible to be taken by the meeting of shareholders.

Evgenia Kryuchkova