The Federal Tax Service (FTS) of Russia found assets and accounts belonging to Russians in 58 countries around the globe, including the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Mauritius and other known offshore addresses.

Dmitry Volvach, head of the Department for international cooperation and currency control of the Federal Tax Service, noted that 80 to 85% of the information received “does not come as a surprise” for the FTS, since “we already know quite a lot about the taxpayers. Between 10 and 15% is the rate of newly detected nonconformities we are counting on,” notes the head of the Moscow-based taxation watchdog.

The incoming data goes through a process of verification or matching, i.e. the search for a connection between the owner of a foreign account and the records in the domestic data systems of tax authorities.

The FTS notes that following the second stage of the amnesty on capitals, which ended on March 1, Russian taxpayers declared over EUR 10 bln worth of bank accounts.

The new evidence comes from the global automatic data exchange plan of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) set up to combat tax evasion and illegal profit cutting schemes. Russia began receiving the information on foreign accounts of its taxpayers since September 2018. Globally, some 75 countries and 13 territories participate in the exchange of financial data.