Originally Posted by Crocodile
If you operate business in Russia in fully legal manner, you would be taxed unreasonably high. You need to understand a bit how the tax system in Russia works. The government jobs pay very little as the distribution of the government income is unfair. Therefore the following 'direct compensation system' takes place:
1. The taxes are not delivered in the legal form to the government, but rather by means of the bribes to the specific officials so they would actually do the job they're supposed to.
2. The government is doing nothing to protect your business property, so you either have to hire your own security or pay to the specific heads of the police. (And often you'd have to do both.)
3. Every legal proceeding in court has to be directly paid off in bribes to the judges in addition to the regular lawyers and the official processing fees.
The amounts of the aforementioned 'direct payments' are usually set arbitrarily by the officials themselves based on their subjective assessment of your capability to pay.
After you, as a businessman, paid off all those necessary 'fees' to operate your business it makes no sense to pay the actual taxes which would make for the double-taxation.