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International conference organized by "JurInfoR-MSU" Institute for Contemporary Education, “JurInfoR” center, the Criminalists and Criminologists’ Union (Moscow), and the U.S. Department of Justice, 20-21 May, 1997, Moscow

On combating new types of economic crimes in Russia and the United States

Reimbursement of Losses Resulting from Tax Crimes

Ilya Ilyich Kucherov

One major mission of the tax police is to ensure reimbursement of losses inflicted on the State by tax-dodgers. This has to do with certain specific features of the efforts made by the Federal Tax Police Service to ensure that mandatory payments to the budget are made.

Analysis of existing practices indicates that reimbursement of losses resulting from tax crimes is often far less successful as compared to similar parameters on other crimes, even though huge amounts of cash are involved. As they work to have losses reimbursed, tax police inquest and investigation experts confront serious problems: it is difficult to determine what agency should bring civil actions in defense of State interests, to identify the persons who should reimburse the losses caused by the tax crime, and to calculate the volume and structure of damages claimed. Many judges examining such civil lawsuits still do not have a clear idea as to the jurisdiction and legal nature thereof.

This state of affairs is largely due to the fact that the institution of a civil lawsuit was established in the law of criminal procedure quite a long time ago and fails to accommodate fully the socio-economic changes that have occurred in society.

The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation is now working on a ruling to clarify certain issues of applying legislation regulating tax violation liability. Certain items in that ruling address civil lawsuit examination issues. However, that ruling, as drafted today, will not resolve all the legal problems related to reimbursement. It is imperative therefore to add the following norms to the existing legislation:

1) norms obliging tax inspectorates to bring civil actions against tax crimes and to defend them in court;

2) norms establishing the distribution of liability between companies that have violated tax legislation and their managers;

3) norms identifying the nature of losses inflicted and the limits of reimbursement liability.

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