Tax Compliance and its Enforcement Instruments: Russian Approach

The absence of a tax compliance theory in the Russian doctrine predetermined the objectives of the study – the search for promising tools to achieve the willingness of taxpayers to comply with the tax legislation voluntarily, as well as determining the place of coercive measures against taxpayers in order to ensure tax compliance in the Russian Federation. The work is based on the complex application of a number of general and special research methods (structural and functional analysis, comparative legal, formal-logical, system-structural methods). The information base of the research is represented by domestic legal acts and judicial practice, official data of the Federal Tax Service of Russia, scientific works of both Russian and foreign authors. The study’s main outcome is to validate the conclusion that tax administration (in order to ensure tax compliance) must combine not only the tools of coercive influence (tax audits, horizontal tax monitoring, anti-tax avoidance measures aimed at tackling aggressive tax planning) but also stimulating tools: interaction between tax payers and tax authorities in the form of information exchange, sending recommendations and proposals to the taxpayer on independent clarification of the tax base and tax obligations