Foreign tax and corporate law

Our experts possess practical experience, gained from complex international projects. Any project, which involves a company from the Russian Federation and other foreign companies, requires a mandatory match between legal regulations in all affected countries. That is why our experts have established close working relationships with colleagues from major key jurisdictions, who provide legal opportunities for international tax planning.

Foreign tax law

In order to develop an international holding company, or to implement a joint international project, it’s very important for the management to determine in advance the tax implications for all the parties involved.

As a rule, the following steps will be required:

• Detailed description of the business model (types of contracts, financial flows, the companies involved), allocation of types of income and expenditure of all companies involved.
• Clear definition of the jurisdiction of operation (subject to the tax residence of the company, the permanent representation offices of the foreign organizations, place of management and control), and distinguishing the types of income of the participants in the project, depending on their place of business.
• Making a prognosis for tax revenues and expenditures, according to the applicable tax laws.
• Provide advice on tax liabilitied and potential risks, taking into consideration the advanced tax practice tools, as well as possible legal tax advantages.

Foreign corporate law

There are many situations when Russian businesses interact with foreign counterparts. For the purpose of doing business in different jurisdictions, establishing a joint company / holding, owned by the project participants is highly advisable. For the purpose of securing the ownership of assets, the use of foreign companies is likely to be efficient. For the purpose of signing a contract with a foreign counterparty (and performing due diligence) information on the approval procedures for transactions and deals, made by a foreign legal entity might be needed.

In all these cases (and many others), the following actions are required:

• Identify the jurisdiction, under which the project is registered, offshore / onshore company status.
• Identify the characteristics of corporate transparency (in many countries, access to the main corporate information is open to any individual, who wishes to obtain information).
• Familiarize with the different aspects of the legal regulations, covering management, control and ownership of a company, taking into account the number of people, who are actually involved in management and the distribution of tasks between them.
• To provide recommendations based on the customer’s vision.

In all of the above situations, our experts base their work on the principle of rationalizing efforts. Extensive practical experience has shown that the success of a project depends primarily on the ability to correctly relate the norms of Russian and foreign law, when it comes to identical business activities. That being said, our first task would be to describe the business model in detail and consider its standings in both Russian and foreign law. After that, we would seek confirmation of our findings from foreign lawyers in the jurisdiction of interest. Thus, foreign lawyers (whose hourly rate is usually much higher than that of their Russian counterparts) are responsible for a fraction of the project and the customer is able to acquire quality service at a reasonable cost.

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