Russian property issues after marriage

[mendeleev 68]

The last time I was in Russia, my wife registered me at her flat. Now, several months later, the tax authority has sent her a demand to pay taxes on the income she must have received from me. We have not registered our marriage in Russia and she maintains her propitska at property she owns back home. Of course, she didn’t receive any rent from me for the privilege of staying in her flat when visiting her family. She’ll try to straighten this out when returns, on her own, next months for a previously planned visit. Has anyone had similar hassles? How have you dealt with them?

My wife is also exercised by current news reports that the Russian government plans to assess taxes on flats according to their current market price, rather than previous nominal (very low) prices. She worries about how to pay taxes for her flat and her mother’s flat. My MIL lives in the same neighborhood as my wife’s flat and property values have gone way up in this desireable area over the past decade. Values aren’t as high as the most prestigious places on Moscow or St. Petersburg but come in close to that. Of course, my MIL, a widowed pensioner, cannot even cover her costs right now as they are. Are others on this board experiencing anxiety over these increased tax rumors? How are you addressing them?

[slim 1,530]

When this happened in America we had a Revolution!

To seriously address your concerns, I'm not sure. My wife is in a similar situation although I'm not registered there (for that very reason - didn't you know they assess by number of persons registered?) and they live in a cheap (for now) city so it's not really an issue for us. (Yet.)

The only thing I could suggest is to have your wife "unregister" both of you (through an embassy here in the States), sell the apartment and then use the profits on the sale of her apartment to pay for MIL's taxes.

[mendeleev 68]

When this happened in America we had a Revolution!

To seriously address your concerns, I'm not sure. My wife is in a similar situation although I'm not registered there (for that very reason - didn't you know they assess by number of persons registered?) and they live in a cheap (for now) city so it's not really an issue for us. (Yet.)

The only thing I could suggest is to have your wife "unregister" both of you (through an embassy here in the States), sell the apartment and then use the profits on the sale of her apartment to pay for MIL's taxes.

Slim,

She merely registered me for the two weeks that I was in her apartment last fall. I'm not registered there now. Of course, she is.

[PJB 0]

My husband had to register me in his flat in Moscow several years ago when I was on a visa through a school. We ended up paying double the monthly bills on heat, cold water, hot water, gas and taxes. And even though I was only there for 6 weeks he had to pay extra on the bills for the whole 3 month length of the visa! After that I "bought" visas from agencies that registered me with "businesses" and never registered in our apt again!

[slim 1,530]

I'm really surprised two govt. agencies communicated to the point where you were charged. In the U.S., that would've taken several years!