Recommendations
Made by the First Inter-Regional Coordination Workshop on SEO registration and licensing of specific activities

18. The development and implementation of the concept of a dedicated federal law on firms (trademarks) independently of the Law studied.
        In agreement with the provision of Article 54 of the Civil Code of Russian Federation, the law and other regulations govern the procedure of using the business name of a legal entity. Today this issue is regulated by the "Statute of a firm", approved by the Enactment of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR of June 22, 1927. However, due to the fact that the state registration of economic operators is tightly linked to business names, it seems necessary to pass the federal Law on business names of legal entities, corresponding to modern economic reality, together with the Law on state registration. In agreement with the provision of Article 54 of the Civil Code of Russian Federation, the law and other regulations govern the procedure of using the business name of a legal entity. Today this issue is regulated by the "Statute of a firm", approved by the Enactment of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR of June 22, 1927. However, due to the fact that the state registration of economic operators is tightly linked to business names, it seems necessary to pass the federal Law on business names of legal entities, corresponding to modern economic reality, together with the Law on state registration.
    
19. When passing the Law, it is necessary to solve the issue of the legal nature of the registration fee.
        The state registration is a permit issued by the state, which envisages a collection of a certain monetary fee for the conduct of legally meaningful actions in respect of the founders of an economic operator to be registered. In this aspect the relationships arising are subjected to the jurisdiction of the Tax Code of Russian Federation, defining:
    - all types of taxes and fees collected in Russian Federation;
    - the reasons for obligations related to payment of taxes and fees to arise (modify, terminate) and the procedure of their fulfillment;
    - the rights and obligations of tax payers, tax bodies and other parties to the relationships governed by the legislation on taxes and fees.
        In this aspect a fee is understood to be a compulsory contribution collected from the organizations, its payment being one of the prerequisites of taking juridically meaningful steps by state bodies, bodies of local self-government, other authorized bodies and their officials in respect of the payers of these fees (Article 8 of the Tax Code of RF).
        Articles 13 - 15 of the Tax Code of Russian Federation define the types of federal, regional and local taxes and fees. However, according to Article 6 of the Federal Law "On implementation of the second part of the Tax Code of Russian Federation and amendments to individual legislative acts on taxation", the provisions of Articles 13-15 currently do not apply, until the Law of RSFSR (RSFSR stands for Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and is referred to the times of the USSR. Some laws of RSFSR are still in force within the system of current Russian legislation.) "On the basics of tax system in Russian Federation" is proved null and void. This is why the existing system of taxes and fees is defined by Articles 19-20 of the Law of RSFSR "On the basics of tax system in Russian Federation" (Article 3 of the Federal Law of July 31, 1998 № 147-FZ "On implementation of Part 1 of the Tax Code of Russian Federation" (as edited by the Federal Law № 118-FZ of August 5, 2000)). In this case the taxes, duties, fees and other payments to budget non-budget fund, not stipulated by Articles 19, 20 and 21 of the Law of RSFSR "On the basics of tax system in Russian Federation" are not collected (Article 2 of the Federal Law "On implementation of Part 1 of the Tax Code of Russian Federation"). Should we analyze the provisions of Articles 19, 20 and 21 of the Law of RSFSR mentioned above, we may conclude that no collection of fee for the registration of a legal entity is envisaged by the federal legislation. Consequently, the said registration fee can be set forth neither by federal laws, nor by the laws of RF entities or by the acts of law issued by local self-governments, until the amendments are made to the Law of RSFSR "On the basics of the tax system in Russian Federation".
        Thus, to have the collection of a registration fee legalized it is necessary to draft a federal law "On making changes and amendments to the Law of RSFSR "On the basics of tax system in Russian Federation".
    
20. The Law should exhaustively regulate the issues of exclusion from the Uniform State Register.
        It seems necessary to give a special attention to the procedures of excluding an economic operator from the Uniform State register when drafting the Law. The possibility to use the administrative procedure for the exclusion from the register, as well as individual cases of exclusion through a court procedure should be envisaged, too.
    

1. Envisage the submission of information by the registration body on request of the licensing body.
       Due to the fact that a considerable amount of information on the activity of economic operators is supposed to be entered into the Uniform State Register, it seems feasible to bind the registration body to submit the information necessary to issue a license on request of a licensing body.
   
2. Reduction of activities to be licensed.
       The experts proposed to have only those activities licensed, that are executed in the spheres most sensitive for the state, and which regulation can not be possibly effected by any other administrative means (i.e., certification, accreditation etc.) but by licensing only.
   
3. The need to list all the licensed activities in one document (a Law).
       According to the Federal Law "On licensing of specific activities" in force, both the activities listed in Article 17 of the said Law and these listed in other regulations are subject to licensing. These "other regulations" are so abundant, that today this or that question related to licensing is often solved very differently by individual regulations. The list of the activities to be licensed concentrated in one legislative act would allow to bring the relationships on licensing of specific activities to order.
   
4. Definition of specific licensing terms and requirements, restricting them down to the requirements really necessary for the given licensed activity.
       According to the Federal Law "On licensing of specific activities", non-adherence to the licensing requirements may entail the termination of a license. The law also defines the list of compulsory licensing terms and conditions, which are "adherence to the legislation, environmental, sanitary and epidemiological, hygiene, fire-fighting norms and rules, as well as provisions on licensing of specific activities". Thus, the Law does not give a clear and transparent definition of licensing terms and requirements. This is why such a regulation, taken together with the right of a licensing body "to conduct inspections of a licensee's activity for the adherence of the activity executed by it to the licensing terms and requirements" makes arbitrariness more than possible. On the one hand, any minor violation of the legislation may entail the procedure of a license termination; on the other hand, a licensing body is entitled to inspect any aspect of a licensee's activity.
       In connection with the above the experts proposed to modify the Law "On licensing of specific activities" with the amendments defining "the licensing terms and conditions" as terms of adherence to the legislation related to the execution of the respective licensed activity.
   
5. Regulating the issues of license extension and its terms and conditions by the Law.
       Today the extension of a license validity is done according to the Federal Law mentioned above in conformity with the procedure set forth for its obtaining. According to the experts, it makes the procedure unnecessarily complex. The absence of a documentary proof of violation of licensing terms and requirements by a licensee is proposed as a condition of a license extension. In other words, should there be no violations in the licensed activity pursued by a licensee, the procedure of a license extension for another period should exclusively consist of the entrepreneur's application for the license extension and the respective authorization of the licensing body.
       The experts also proposed to study the possibility of issuing a license without time limit.
   

4. Addressees of the recommendations

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