The Federal Tax Service of the Russian Federation partially released the Russian Internet giant Mail.Ru Group from paying value-added tax on the sale of virtual gifts and additional functions in social games.
This was announced today, June 28, by herself Mail.Ru Group. According to her message on the London Stock Exchange, “the company has received official confirmation from the Russian tax authorities that since January 1, 2017, a significant part of Russian IVAS income is exempt from Russian VAT.”
IVAS is a separate major revenue item of the company. It takes into account sales from all social media services. Only for 2016 in the framework of this article Mail.Ru The Group earned 11.8 billion rubles, more than from MMO projects.
The removal of VAT coincided with the introduction of VAT on the sale of any digital content to Russian users by Western companies, the so-called “Google tax”: it also came into force on January 1, 2017.
In 2014 Mail.Ru The Group tried to get an exemption from value-added tax from micropayments in its frituplay games. Then the Federal Tax Service decided that “Services for organizing the gameplay by providing the possibility of using additional game functionality for an additional fee are not subject to VAT exemption and their implementation is subject to VAT at the rate of 18% in accordance with the generally established procedure.”
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