David Kapianidze, Head of Tax Law Practice, BMS Law Firm, noted that legal grounds for refund of overpayments by the results of financial and business activities arise from the date of submission of a tax return for a relevant period, but not later than the date of its submission to tax authorities. «Consequently, for 2011 – not later than 15 March 2012; for 2012– not later than 15 March 2013; for 2013 – not later than 15 March 2014. A tax payer’s filing a claim with court to refund excessively paid taxes is possible only if a tax authority refuses to satisfy the tax payer’s request or if the taxpayer does not receive a response within a statutory period. Thus, in this particular case the period for filing a claim in relation to 2012 and 2013 has not been missed”, the expert explained.

David Kapianidze also drew the attention to the instruction by the Supreme Court that claims in such cases must be treated separately, since in some of them the period may not be missed. As for the existence of debt with a legal entity, it may prevent a refund of any excessively paid amount only in the same amount, but not bigger. If there is no possibility to make a refund, then such debt cannot serve as the grounds for refund.

“This is the key point here, since the Supreme Court specifies the impossibility of a formal refusal to refund based on the existence of a debt with the tax payer; they need to examine the proportion of debt to overpayments and decide on the possibility of refund”, David Kapianidze 
concluded.