Izvestia. 30% of the rent for luxury apartments in Moscow is evaded from tax payment.

In 2012, 30% of apartments in Moscow with rental rates starting from $2,000 per month were rented without paying taxes, according to experts from the luxury real estate portal Bazanda.ru. This means that the government missed out on 1.5 billion rubles in tax revenue from elite rentals last year.

The average rental rate for luxury housing, according to the experts, is 121,000 rubles per month. The total monthly payment by tenants in this segment is 3.23 billion rubles, and the annual volume of the luxury rental market in 2012 amounted to 38.7 billion rubles.

"Unscrupulous fellow citizens are not paying taxes on the rent of expensive apartments," said Georgy Dzagurov, CEO of the real estate company Penny Lane Realty, to Izvestia.

According to him, some of the non-payers do not intend to rent the apartment indefinitely. In their opinion, the time and effort required to prove to the tax authorities that the apartment is no longer being rented out will be so significant that it is easier not to pay from the beginning. There is also a small group of individuals who are afraid that the laws will change in the future and rates will be increased, with a retroactive calculation of previously received income.

"Laws are sometimes passed with retroactive effect, and for example, an attack on officials who own real estate abroad will force them to sell their properties at a significant discount. One cannot help but conclude that they should not have exposed themselves and should have hidden behind an offshore company with unidentified beneficiaries. And in the case of an apartment, people come to the conclusion that they should not expose themselves," Dzagurov speculates.

However, evading taxes by renting out luxury housing can be difficult.

— Tenants are most often legal entities, and the law requires them to act as tax agents, that is, to withhold 13% of the rental payments to the owner and send it to the tax authorities on their behalf, — says Victoria Opolskaya, director of the residential rental department at Blackwood company. According to her, even if the next tenant is an individual, after once being exposed, the apartment owner prefers not to take any risks and pay taxes, as they can be audited at any time.

— Companies rent a significant portion of expensive apartments in Moscow for their employees. An agreement is concluded between the landlord and the tenant, and monetary transfers are made through non-cash settlement. Foreigners are not accustomed to renting differently, — said Irina Mogilatova, CEO of TWEED real estate agency.

According to the estimation of Kalinka Real Estate Consulting Group, 80% of apartments are rented legally at rates starting from $10,000.

— More owners in the premium segment operate within the law because the risks are very high — expensive renovations, expensive furniture, — noted Ekaterina Rumyantseva, Chairman of the Board of Directors at Kalinka Real Estate.  — It is better to have the documents in order in order to have the opportunity to claim compensation in the event of force majeure.

In general, according to the Moscow government, there are 300,000 apartments for rent in the capital, while only 15,000 owners paid taxes last year — 5% of the total number. The city authorities are trying to change the situation. At the end of 2012, the Moscow GUVD and the Federal Tax Service signed an agreement to implement an analytical data collection scheme for rented housing. A system of material incentives has been created for district police officers, who will identify violators. Property management companies will also be involved in finding violators.

In case of discovering the fact of renting out the apartment, the owner will be required to settle the tax debt and pay a fine of 20% of the unpaid amount. In case of a repeat offense, the fine will be doubled. If it can be proven that undeclared income reached a "particularly large amount" (1.5 million rubles), the violator may face up to three years of imprisonment.