OREANDA-NEWS. September 20, 2013. Almin Rabinovich, Chief Methodologist of the Energy Consulting Group, presented his speech in a press-conference "Arguable and obvious matters of the Russian tax system". The Conference was held in Saint-Petersburg on the threshold of the International Assembly of Tax Consultants.

Almin Rabinovich, the author of seven books and over 400 publications on the accounting and taxation matters, highlighted the main arguable points of the Russian tax system as a practicing professional of the expert community. The expert of Energy Consulting, in particular, touched in details on three key factors affecting the level of uncertainty (arguable points) of the Russian tax system.

Almin Rabinovich considered approaches of the Presidium of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation to resolution of arguable disputes (the Supreme Arbitration Court provides tax authorities and taxpayers with benchmarks as to how to solve tax disputes, what kind of legal logic or methodology should be applied to, etc.). The expert commented how the Federal Tax Service and the RF Ministry of Finance could influence on the level of arguable points of the tax system, as well as focused on horizons of interlinks between tax law and accounting rules.

In Almin Rabinovich’s opinion, it is impossible to talk about the needs to simplify the tax accounting by virtue of its approximation to the financial accounting without consideration of the Russian accounting development trends. "It is much talked of the need for approximation of accounting to taxation, and many professionals have made many efforts to implement these ideas. All this creates an additional "point of tension" in the tax system and it can increase the degree of uncertainty - the number of contentious issues", the expert emphasized.

One of these arguable points is transfer to the fixed assets accounting under the IFRS rules. The result of this process is the significant increase of the tax property base for large and medium-sized businesses.

Participants of the conference discussed as well the electronic workflow and the abilities of tax advisers to provide taxpayers with free-of-charge information support.

Together with Energy Consulting, representatives of the Chamber of Tax Advisers, the St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce, as well as the organizing committee of the International Assembly of Tax Advisers responded to journalists’ questions. The last event will be held on September 18-20 in St. Petersburg.