Review of case law on notification of tax authorities on the controlled foreign companies

Abstract

This article is dedicated to revelation and analysis of the gaps in legal regulation of profit taxation of controlled foreign companies (CFC) and notification of tax authorities on the controlled foreign companies via examining the available case law. The author determines six types of legal disputes that arise in the context of submission of participation notices in CFC, as well as CFC notices. Analysis is conducted on the methods of elimination of gaps in legislation of the Russian Federation on controlled foreign companies by introduction of point amendments to the current legislation on CFC. Settlement of legal disputes over interpretation of the Paragraph 7.1 of the Article 309.1 and Subparagraph 2 of the Paragraph 1 of the Article 25.13-1 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation requires supplementing the Article 25.14 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation with the Paragraph 3.2 of the following content: “The obligation on submitting the CFC notice does not depend on the financial results of CFC. The existence of tax exemption does not relieve of the duty to provide CFC notice”. The disputes often arise when the taxpayers default the submission period, and after receiving a request from the inspectorate, provide data for not only the companies listed in the request, but other companies as well. For avoiding any related disputes, it is recommended to supplement the Paragraph 2 of the Article 25.14 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation with the following content: “A revised notice cannot be submitted with regards to CFC, the information on which was not provided in the initial notice”. In order to minimize the actions of inspectorate “with unacceptable formalism”, it is recommended to supplement the Article 129.6 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation with the Paragraph 3 of the following content: “Submission of incomplete information or information containing technical or orthographic errors, which do not obstruct the identification of foreign company, are not considered a tax crime”.