The State Duma has introduced a bill to release OOOs (LLCs) from liability if they are not able to re-register their charter documents by January 1. Business owners are glad that the misery of standing in long lines at the registration department will soon be over.
At the end of 2008, Duma deputies approved amendments to the law on OOOs which changed the requirements for their charter documents as well as the rules for carrying out monetary transactions. The amendments went into effect July 1, leaving 3.1 million registered OOOs only six months to re-register their charter documents to be in accordance with the new regulations. As a result, huge lines formed at the Federal Tax Service’s registering departments and people even began making money off of the unfortunate situation by selling places in the lines. Officials announced on more than one occasion that re-registering after January 1 was acceptable but it did not seem to alleviate business owners’ anxiety.
Legislators consequently found a solution to the problem. A group of Duma deputies introduced amendments abolishing the preclusive January 1 deadline. Now, companies can implement necessary revisions to their charter documents whenever they wish to introduce changes. “The statute is quite flexible, and it’s become clear that there is no need to get all worked up about submitting changes by the end of the year,” said Viktor Pleskachevski, the head of the Duma’s Committee on Property Rights and one of the authors of the bill.
As indicated by a memorandum to the bill, the amendments are “in working order” and are in agreement with the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade and the Federal Tax Service (FTS). Pleskachevski is certain that the bill will be passed before the new year.
According to Ivan Oskolkov, director of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, the ministry is supporting the amendments. “The contents of the bill are very well-known to us, no objections have come up,” said Vitaly Kolesnikov, the managing director of the Federal Tax Service. “Our position on the amendments is neutral.” The lines to re-register have already grown smaller and the FTS is not planning to fine anyone for late re-registration, he added. According to Kolesnikov’s data, 11% of all OOOs in Russia have already re-registered. However, legal representatives working at the re-registration offices of Inspectorate #46 in the mornings – when business owners receive tickets allowing them to submit their documents - don’t report noticing a significant reduction in the number of people waiting in line. Onlookers say that there is always a crowd present in the first half of the day, just as there was before.
“They finally decided to put an end to business owners’ misery,” said Sergei Borisov, president of the small business lobbying group OPORA. He expressed his satisfaction with the change and surprise at the fact that the re-registration process was not implemented in such a manner from the beginning. He remarked that a huge corrupt market of selling tickets to those hoping to avoid the lines was immediately formed to get around the re-registration procedures. With the onset of the cold winter weather, such tickets were going for as much as 25,000 rubles.
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