Tax Residency of Individuals in Russia in the Conditions of High Transborder Mobility

The article explores rules on tax residence of individuals as set in the Russian nation legislation and double tax treaties. The author comes to the conclusion that in the context of high cross-border mobility of individuals the current Russian legal regulation of tax residence does not adequately protect the fiscal interests of the state, since it uses a criterion that allows taxpayers to choose if they want to be Russian tax residents or not in the current tax period and lose their tax resident status while maintaining real personal, social and economic ties with the state. At the same time the introduction of new criteria should not be based on blind copying of the experience of foreign countries or the provisions of double tax treaties, and the new rules should use unambiguous wording. In particular, if the terms “availability of a permanent home” or “centre of vital interests” are introduced to national legislation, their meaning should be explicitly defined.