Recovery of damages from the guilty party cannot occur automatically

The head of an organisation was found guilty of tax evasion by his organisation (Article 199 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation). When considering the criminal case, the court left the civil claim without consideration. Consequently, the prosecutor filed a claim for the recovery of unpaid taxes (damages) from the guilty party in court in accordance with the civil procedure.

However, the conviction of a person does not automatically lead to the satisfaction of a claim for damages, because it is first necessary to establish the absence of legal and (or) factual grounds for satisfying tax claims at the expense of the organisation itself or persons liable for its debts in accordance with the procedure provided for by law (for example, if the taxpayer organisation has the characteristics of an inactive legal entity specified in clause 1 of Article 21.1 of Federal Law № 129-FZ of 8 August 2001 "On State Registration of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs", or it has been established that it is impossible to satisfy the claims for mandatory payments taking into account the market value of the organisation’s assets), as stated in paragraph 28 of the Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated 26 November 2019 № 48 "On the practice of application by courts of legislation on liability for tax crimes".

This means that if an organisation has assets, including accounts receivable (whether awarded by a court or not, it does not matter), the organisation is not excluded from the register of legal entities, and there are no signs of an inactive legal entity, then it is not possible to recover the amount of damage from an individual convicted of tax evasion. In addition, despite the court’s verdict, at the time of filing and considering the prosecutor’s claim in court, it is necessary to have data from the tax authority that the organisation has tax arrears.

As a result, the prosecutor’s claim was dismissed.