On 12 October 2006, the Supreme Commercial Court (the Court) issued a guideline to differentiate between acceptable tax planning on the one hand and tax evasion and avoidance on the other. The Court departed from the vague concept of "bad faith taxpayer" and instead applied another concept, "unjustified tax benefit", which seems to combine certain aspects of tax avoidance and tax evasion.
Under the guideline, the Russian courts should assume, unless the tax …