As BANKO found out, in mid October Federal Tourism Agency and Federal Tax Service of Russian Federation signed an agreement of cooperation. Rostourism undertook to inform Federal Tax Service about all granted, suspended and canceled licenses to tour operators and travel agencies. In return, Tax Service will provide Rostourism with information from the Single State Register of legal entities and individual entrepreneurs working on the travel market. Sergey Sinitsyn, a press secretary of Federal Tourism Agency, interviewed by a BANKO correspondent, explained: ‘In practice, if Rostourism starts examining a travel firm on the basis of a complaint, it can receive additional information from Federal Tax Service revealing other activities of the firm. Similarly, if Tax Service has some doubts concerning a travel company, they will address to us’. Sergey Sinitsyn added that this routine had been used before but on voluntary basis, now this collaboration is obligatory. According to an expert, this will reduce a chance of non-fulfillment of obligations by tour operators. In the nearest future Federal Tourism Agency plans to sign a similar agreement with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, because it is usually them who receive complains from holiday-makers.
Meantime, operators interviewed by a BANKO correspondent suggested two possible consequences of the new agreement. On the one hand, collaboration between Federal Tourism Agency and Federal Tax Service will organize the work of tour firms with internal documentation. ‘Now companies will be more careful with their documents,’ believes Alexey Sergecheev, a vice-president of ‘IntAir’. On the other hand, it looks like now even small travel firms will have to employ their own bookkeeper. ‘This will induce additional expenses and therefore the original cost of tours will increase,’ says Alexander Sinigibsky, the head representative of ‘Tez Tour’ in Russia. Curiously enough, none of the experts considered the cooperation of the two controlling organizations as a means of preventing dishonest tour operators from violating their obligations.
