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Russia halts denunciation of tax agreement with Cyprus

Cyprus has agreed to Russia’s terms on raising the tax on dividend and interest to 15%, Russia’s Finance Ministry informed Monday

Russia’s Finance Ministry Vladimir Gerdo/TASS

Russia’s Finance Ministry

© Vladimir Gerdo/TASS

MOSCOW, August 10. /TASS/. Cyprus has agreed to Russia’s terms on raising the tax on dividend and interest to 15%, Russia’s Finance Ministry said in a statement on Monday.

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Russia to initiate denunciation of tax convention with Cyprus from August 3

"As part of the talks the Republic of Cyprus agreed to the terms of the Russian Federation on making changes to the Russian-Cypriot agreement on avoidance of double taxation regarding increase of the tax of the source to 15% on dividends and interest," the statement reads.

The protocol on changes to the tax agreement with Cyprus will take force starting 2021. "The protocol is to be ratified by the end of 2020, it will take force starting January 1, 2021," it runs.

"The Cypriot delegation fully agreed to the terms of the Russian side. We initialed the draft protocol that is to be signed in September 2020," Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk who headed the Russian delegation at the talks, was quoted as saying.

In view of this, Russia is halting the earlier announced denunciation of the tax agreement with Cyprus.

Russia will offer the Netherlands the same conditions for the tax convention review as for Cyprus, the Russian Ministry of Finance said on Monday.

"Russia awaits a formal response from the Netherlands to communicated proposals for the tax agreement review. If the Netherlands consents to hold negotiations, it will be offered the same conditions as for the Republic of Cyprus," the Ministry says.

Russia’s Finance Ministry also plans to finalize the talks with Luxembourg and Malta under the same terms as offered to Cyprus within a month. "As the protocol was initialed today, we are halting denunciation of the agreement. We also plan to finalize the talks with Luxembourg and Malta under the same terms as we offered to Cyprus within a month," State Secretary, Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Sazanov said.

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