Tax privacy in Russia exists no more. Понавыбирали.

http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/artic ... /22/108337

No Secrecy

Information about taxes will be accessible due to an error of the Russian legislators.

Tax privacy covers the information that may be inquired about people from their inentification documents and passport requisits to history of all their contrats.

Tax privacy is protected by paragraph 102 of the Internal Revenue Code, which declares that tax privacy "is not to be made public".

Last year the deputies intruduced the law of state purchases, which obliges state organs to distribute purchase orders only through tenders. Only candidats can take part who don't have any tax debts. In order to examine the reliabliliy of a candidat, the tender initiators have to have an opportunity to receive information about his/her tax debts as the authors of the law considered. So, they incluided into the amendments a norm that obliges the tax office to reveal such information. This addition has bean in force since Febrary 2006.

Now the tax office in 10 days must report to the request's author about all the information about debts of a company or a person.

The law does not specify who can be the author of requests and who are be the people whose information can be inquired. So everyone can get information about everone. In order to do so, it's enough to become an emploee in "an organ that have all rights to place state purchase orders". Such an organ may be represented not only by federal executives, regional and local administrations, but a very unspecified "circle of municipal order initiators".

Disclosure of tax privacy is punished by a 10 yeatr term in jail, but those who've found out the secret by the legal way avoid punishment.

"This is a result of unskillful work of the lawmakers" - the head of the Duma's tax committee Natalia Burykina admits.

I can add that the pro-Putin's party of United Russia that's superloyal to President currently is the overwealming majority in the state Duma.