On a hot June day, I visited the tax office here in Moscow to clear up a fine. The receptionist at the tax office looked a little like a military man, standing behind a big desk. He could have been a train conductor, or a customs official. His uniform was a size too small, his hat was crooked and his hair was askew. He was pencil thin, leaving a gap between his collar and his sizeabel Adam’s apple. His job was to hand out chits and direct people elsewhere in the tax office. Instead of sending me to a somnambulant clerk, he energetically showed me a web site devoted to Russian taxes. The man did the work of five customer service clerks. I saw all sorts of exciting things I could do on line that had to do with taxes. He gave me exact information about how to pay my taxes, how to determine the amount I owe, the kinds of sole property businesses I could operate and the tax rates for each. It was delivered with a burst of speed and I don’t remember any of it.
I decided to ask why I had been unjustly forced to pay 9 US Dollars in tax fines, thinking, it wouldn’t be possible to find out. It was. The thin man said my questions could be answered by going to room 601. To gain entrance, I went through the time-honored ritual in Russia of providing my passport details to a guard who occupied his own, spacious room on the first floor. My particulars were written in a book, by hand, using blue ink. I signed it. With my pass in hand, a door was unlocked in the hallway. On the other side of the door was an elevator that went to the sixth floor, a place that could not be reached by the uninitiated or people on foot. At room 601 about forty small wooden desks were crammed into one room, each one piled high with files. Everyone was looking intently at their computer screens. You could have heard a pin drop. It was the inner sanctum, where the fate of taxpayers is determined. A woman named Marina sat closest to the door who I learned was from Kazan. For some reason, the Russian tax Ministry has no small number of people from this part of Russia who know themselves as Volga Bulgars. She opened my file on her screen and showed me everything, the declarations I’d made, the fines I’d paid and my current tax due, which was zero. The nine dollars in fines were caused by the aftermath of a late payment in 2017. In a flash, everything became clear to me. The bookkeeper was to blame. I was again given a long and polite explanation about how to file my taxes. We had a chat about Seattle, a city she had never visited but wanted to. She said I could come back to the inner sanctum at any time. Now I have something to look forward to.
Most nationalities have some kind of a dual nature. Russia is no exception, something written about often. On the street, people in Russia generally smile less than elsewhere, as has been thoroughly documented. In person, they can be warm and open. There are two sides to customer service as well. My accountant was a woman of great kindness. She was generous and personable, a veritable member of the family. She worked for a company that registered my Russian business who provided free accounting help in exchange for the fees I paid them to set up the company. The accountant filed the taxes for my sole property business without sending me an invoice. Finally, it dawned on her that I hadn’t paid her a thin dime for three years. She blew a fuse and declared that Americans are ruining Russia, something I didn’t bother to argue about. She sent me an agreement to sign, showing I would need to pay a fee equal to the services of three accountants over the period. I said no but by that time, she’d filed the return for 2017. It was all over. It turned out she committed an overt act of sabotage by submitting an incorrect statement. Eventually, I paid late along with several miniscule fines. The mystery of the nine dollar penalty was solved at last.
Traditionally, in Russia, everything is done by hand. Documents have always been kept in brown paper files and carted around from place to place. Many government offices in Russia to this day are filled from floor to ceiling with paper documents, each one put away in a grey file with a string on it. The inner sanctum at the tax office showed me that this is gradually changing. Step by step, Russian tax documents are being transferred from paper to data stored digitally. I saw the page displaying my sole property business and my file was as clear as day. At first, I thought it would be impossible find out why I was being randomly fined. Now I see that the Russian tax officials are inexorably becoming better organized. Like it or not, they are coming. Taxpayers in Russia might want to visit an inner sanctum or two at their local tax office and see for themselves. Everyone else can rest easy.
Daniel Brooks, copyright, 6 August 2019