Russian Federation: BVI Ready To Disclose Beneficiaries

Goltsblat BLP advises that the Federal Tax Service (FTS) has approved BVI’s removal from the list of countries (jurisdictions) not exchanging information with the Russian Federation for tax purposes from 1 January 2018 (the relevant order is pending registration with the Ministry of Justice).

A country’s removal from the FTS ‘black list’ will only matter for exempting a controlled foreign company’s profits in Russia under specific circumstances (such as the effective tax rate, the bank or insurer status, or the role of negotiable bond issuers). Even so, the second pre-requisite for such an exemption to be granted is that a DTT (Double Taxation Treaty) has to be in place with the country in question, which is certainly not the case with the BVI.

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