Volunteers and NGOs in Russia exempt from certain taxes

Volunteers are exempt from personal income tax

12.04.2018

In its third and final reading, the State Duma adopted amendments to the tax code, allowing volunteers to not pay tax on their received income.

When volunteers receive income, for instance, in the form of reimbursements for costs incurred by them whilst working, in case of them receiving such income in kind, they will not have to pay taxes, the State Duma’s website reports.

Payments made to individual volunteers are freed from taxation if under civil law contracts, in which the unpaid nature of the work is explicitly stated. The adopted law was developed in relation to a mandate from the President. According to the mandate, volunteers’ income, which is linked with their charitable activities and is received from organisations in kind (in the form of hiring accommodation, paying transport costs, food and equipment) is excluded from taxation.

Also freed from taxation is income in the form of grants, awards and prizes in monetary or non-monetary form, received by tax payers as a result of taking part in competitions and other events out of the budget of Presidential Grants in relation to the conditions of agreements about providing grants to non-profit organisations.

Moreover, taxes are not paid by non-profit organisations which pay the cost of travel to and from the location of a competition and other such events, food (apart from the cost of food higher than the daily allowance) and renting of accommodation for individuals younger than 18 out of the budget provided by the Presidential Grants. Presidential Grants are included in the list of types of income that are not included in the tax of an organisation’s profit.

All changes connected to NGOs and grants will apply to legal relations that have been in place since 1 January 2018.

Source: https://www.asi.org.ru/news/2018/04/12/volontery-ndfl/

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