Travel with Purpose

The Presidium of the Supreme Arbitration Court of Russia has released non-profit organizations from taxes on donations from foreign funds, said in the press release of inter-regional human rights association "Agora", received by "Lentu.Ru."

In the Supreme Arbitration Court "Agora" disputed the claims of people working at the tax body of Tatarstan, insisting on the fact that lawyers have to pay 24 percent tax on profits from the donations of two American funds. Internal Revenue Service attempted to collect 700 thousand rubles from "Agora". Human rights activists have insisted that the donations, unlike grants, are not taxed.

In turn, the IRS did not make the difference between grants, which can be obtained by non-profit organizations as well as commercial structures, and donations given by non-profit organizations "for the common good". First two arbitration courts satisfied the claim of tax-men, then "Agora" appealed to the Supreme Arbitration Court.

In the claim, the lawyers pointed out that the principle of uniformity of the law is violated in Russia, that is, in some regions, non-profit organizations must pay tax on profits, while in others - they must not. At the same time non-profit organizations can not have profit by definition.

According to the decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Arbitration Court, nonprofit organizations should not be taxed on profits from foreign donations. The decision of the Supreme Arbitration Court is binding on all courts of arbitration in Russia.

As explained by the head of "Agora" Pavel Chikov to "Nezavisimaya Gazeta", if nonprofit organizations were required to pay tax on profits, hundreds of Russian nonprofit organizations receiving donations from about one billion rubles would suffer.