RE-Domiciliation to Russia: The Study of Legal and Psychological Motivations

Abstract

The paper was prepared based on the materials of a sociological study conducted by the author in order to reveal the attitude of respondents to the organizational measures and legal innovations implemented by the Russian Federation aimed at the re-domiciliation of organizations registered offshore to the Russian jurisdiction, as well as the return of their assets to the domestic economy. The objective of this work is to determine the proportion of respondents who agree to the implementation of re-domiciliation in the Russian Federation on the terms proposed by the legislator, reasons preventing re-domiciliation, factors that increase the interest in “moving business” from offshore zones to the Russian Federation. As a result, the author determines that the organizational and legal conditions for re-domiciliation are acceptable for almost half of the respondents. At the same time, the one-fifth of the respondents evaluate the prospect of re-domiciliation to the domestic jurisdiction as inappropriate, since in principle they do not trust the Russian Federation and do not want to accumulate assets on its territory regardless of the attractiveness of the proposed conditions. The results of the survey held among respondents planning to engage in entrepreneurial activity (to do business) in the future showed that this group of survey participants demonstrates a more negative attitude towards the use of offshore jurisdictions (compared to other categories of respondents) and generally perceive as attractive the idea of re-domiciliation in the Russian Federation. The most significant obstacle to re-domiciliation is formed due to the uncertainty among the research participants in the stability of Russian legislation, which poses the task before the State and the scientific community to develop legal safeguards concerning the invariability of the legal regime of entities re-domiciled in the Russian Federation. The attitude of the respondents to the ongoing change in the agreements concerning avoidance of double taxation concluded by the Russian Federation with foreign states demonstrates a surprising outcome of the survey: these agreements’ revision acts as a demotivating factor.