MOSCOW, November 18 (RAPSI) – The State Duma adopted a bill on Tuesday aimed at moving business activities of Russian companies from offshores back to the country, RIA Novosti reported on Tuesday.

The bill introduces the “controlled foreign companies”, foreign companies that are not Russian tax residents but are controlled by Russian tax residents. The term “controlling agency” would be a private individual or legal entity that owns over 25 percent of the company’s charter capital (over 50 percent until 2016).

The bill also sets out the criteria for tax exemptions for controlled foreign companies such as NGOs, which do not distribute profits among shareholders, or organizations that were established in accordance with the laws of the member-countries of the Eurasian Economic Union, or banks and lending organizations operating in the countries with which Russia has tax agreements.

The amount of the profit tax paid in the said companies’ home countries would be deducted from the tax to be collected from controlled foreign companies. Liability for concealing property and income in offshore havens will become effective in 2017.

In December 2013, President Vladimir Putin in his annual address to the Federal Assembly called for a crackdown on Russian companies that dodge taxes by registering in offshore jurisdictions.

Following a meeting with the management of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs in June, the Finance Ministry along with the Economic Development Ministry was to come up with initiatives brining Russian companies back.

The first bill proposed by a group of lawmakers on October 22.