Procedural Peculiarities of Legal Investigation of Tax Crimes

Increasing the level of tax discipline as well as compliance with legal order in the sphere of taxes is traditionally considered as one of the main guidelines of the state policy in Russia. This graduate paper is aimed at considering procedural peculiarities of legal investigation of tax crimes. In order to obtain the aim of the paper we have to: (а) analyze key elements essential to the tax offences as well as observe the development of the system of authorities enabled to investigate tax crimes; (b) find some features peculiar to the process of initiation of criminal tax cases; (с) outline the main facts to be proven and certain mechanisms of usage of special knowledge during the investigation of tax crimes; (d) observe some problems of the current legal mechanism of compensation for harm caused by tax crimes. The paper consists of an introduction, four chapters, 9 paragraphs, a conclusion and a bibliography. Based on this research the following conclusions were made: firstly, tax crimes have some special features, such as high latency, the necessity of using special knowledge during their investigation etc.; secondly, due to the peculiarities mentioned above the subjects of investigation should preclude from using traditional methods of legal investigation of such criminal cases; thirdly, one of the possible ways to raise effectiveness of investigation of tax crimes, providing additional protective mechanisms for entrepreneurs, is differentiation of forms of criminal proceedings and differentiation of criminal liability for tax offences; hence, the reform of existing legal mechanisms in the sphere of investigation of tax crimes as well as introduction of a new criminal term – “misdemeanor offense” – could become one of possible ways to improve efficiency of investigation of criminal tax cases.