This is a favorable development which continues the Putin initiated program on writing off tax related debts, he stated to a REGNUM News Agency correspondent. First, it is quite logical that the amount of penalties must not be over than the debt itself. This is exactly what could prevent cases where penalties were times more than the amount of debt, and the chances that at least a portion of the debt would be paid off significantly decrease.

The point is that due to a disproportionate growth of penalties as compared to the amount of debt, the possibility to satisfy the principal amount of debt reduces. The efficiency of collecting such debts is not particularly high, and it does not justify the costs involved in collection, and the workload on the judicial system has to be taken into consideration as well which has to deal with such claims”.