Khachatryan, A. K. Relief from Criminal Responsibility for Tax Crime

Abstract: The subject under research: the article is devoted to the problems that may arise when applying the legal provision on relief from criminal responsibility for tax crime. The author of the article analyzes contradictory legislative texts established by the criminal law (Part 1 of Article 761 and Note 2 to Articles 198 and 199 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and criminal procedure law (Article 281 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation). The author describes grounds and conditions for application of these legislative provisions as well as problems that may arise as a result thereto. In particular, the author analyzes the cases when a crime has been committed for the first time or the damage to the budget system has been recovered. The author describes contradictions between judicial practice and theory of the criminal law on the matter. The article is based on the technical method of analyzing the practice of the application of legal provisions about relief from criminal responsibility as set forth by Part 1 of Article 761 of the Criminal Code of the RF and Note 2 to Articles 198 and 199 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The author also uses the statistical method for evaluating the efficiency of the application of these provisions. According to the author, the latest version of Part 1 of Article 761 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation fails to be efficient which is caused by such factors as the low efficiency of work performed by tax authorities to enforce collection of taxes and low efficiency of law-enforcement agencies investigating tax crime which leads to frequent expiration of the statute of limitations. Taking all these circumstances and factors into account, the author concludes that there is a certain need to improve the practice of tax administration to make provisions actually effective.

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