The Department of Information Technologies (DIT) of Moscow has developed a mechanism that allows using illegal data to identify illegal rental of apartments, the head of the DIT, Artem Yermolayev, told RBC on the sidelines of the Moscow Urban Forum.

"The mechanism is tested, we understand how it works. At some point in time, we use this data, this mechanism, "says Yermolayev. - It has no exit [for external users] and a specific service for residents. For ourselves, for analytical purposes, we [already] use it. "

Before the mechanism will work in full force and with its help it will be possible to determine tax evaders, it will be necessary to make changes in the legislation, says Ermolaev. "This is a complicated scheme, because it is organizational, regulatory and legal. Here, the intersection of responsibility zones. For this to work in the usual way, the tax [service] must [first of all] have a number of regulatory changes, "concluded Yermolayev. He does not disclose other details of the project either.

Interest in identifying the shortfall in taxes through the analysis of large data DIT shows a minimum of a year. Yermolayev himself at last year's Moscow Urban Forum at the round table "Data-driven cities: how data change our perception of the city" mentioned that work on such a system is under way. Then he clarified that it is intended to analyze the largest Internet resources on which apartments are offered for rent, and to compare these data with statistics on the payment of taxes. After such an analysis, the data on those apartments that may have been illegally leased were planned to be transferred to the tax service for verification.

The source of RBC in the Moscow tax authorities confirmed to RBC that such a project does exist, but did not specify its status. In the Moscow Department of Finance, RBC's request was redirected to the capital department of economic policy and development, which did not provide comments at the time of publication.

Large gray

The volume of the annual rental offer of apartments in Moscow is 200-300 thousand objects, the director of the company "Miel-Rent" Maria Zhukova estimates, adding that it is impossible to say exactly how many of them found tenants. On "Yandeks.Nedvizhimost" for June, which is considered a low season, with the service "gone" - that is, presumably, was handed over - 7.5 thousand apartments for a total of 405 million rubles. month lease, told RBC in the press service of the service. That is, with a minimum volume of demand in Moscow in a year can surrender 90 thousand apartments.

According to the latest available public data of the Department of Economic Policy and Development of Moscow, for the first nine months of 2017, 27.32 thousand apartments were leased legally. Taxes are paid by the owners of 25,418 thousand apartments, the rest bought patents, then the head of the department Vladimir Efimov told Vedomosti. According to him, since 2012, the number of citizens who rent their apartments legally has increased by 68%. According to the data given to them, in 2016 the amount of the tax claimed amounted to 1.116 billion rubles, in the first nine months of 2017 - 1.28 billion rubles. "Nevertheless, the main goal is not replenishment of the budget, but legalization of the rental market and the establishment of order in the residential sector," he said.

Most of those who legally rent an apartment in Moscow, choose a way to pay tax on personal income. But in the management of the Federal Tax Service in Moscow, RBC reported that they do not keep statistics on how much of the taxes paid come from the rental income of apartments. In total, on July 1, 2018 in Moscow, 26.8 thousand people submitted tax returns on personal income, which is 24% more than a year earlier. But the total amount of tax decreased by 4%, amounting to 852 million rubles. The number of patents granting the right to lease residential and non-residential premises is also growing: according to the Federal Tax Service's data, at the beginning of 2017, 6,1 thousand Muscovites held such patents, at the beginning of 2018 - at 7,4 thousand. At the time of publication in the department economic policy and development failed to update the data on the number of reported legal owners of apartments.

Issued data

The largest online services for finding apartments for rent: Avito. Real Estate (Avito and Domofond sites - according to their own estimates, 62% of all rental transactions in Russia are conducted through them), TsIAN, Yula (Mail.ru Group project), Yandex. Real estate.

The press service of Yandex said that with the Yandex.Real Estate service, the DIT project was not discussed, and stressed that "it is impossible to access the company's databases without her knowledge." Avito is also claimed to be unfamiliar with the department's project. "But only on the basis of the data indicated in the announcements, it is incorrect to draw conclusions that the apartment was rented," the press service of the service says, adding that the advertisement can be placed both by the owner and his relative or realtor. CIAN declined to comment. In "Yule" they did not answer questions about the DIT project.

The data director of Weborama Russia and the vice-president of the non-commercial partnership for the promotion of interactive advertising IAB Russia, Dmitry Egorov, explained to RBC that it is not so difficult to solve the problem posed by the DIT technically. "You can get the base of the apartments and the numbers of the people who rent them. The only point, in practice, as a rule, the ad does not specify the exact address of the object of delivery (apartment number, floor, etc.), and often the apartments are rented not by the owners, but by realtors. It is these facts that make it difficult to link the object of delivery with the owner for the subsequent collection of taxes, "he explained. To do this, according to Egorov, it is possible either through agreements with the portals, or by beginning to accumulate a "historical base." "For example, today they (DIT - RBC) are making a decision to start the project and are beginning to accumulate a base, and after they have a database of inactive ads that can be checked," he concluded.

In order to obtain data on landlords, there will be no problems, since announcements with telephone numbers are in the public domain, says commercial director AmberData Victor Mityunin. "If the user gave the DIT (or the third service) permission to work with his data, DIT, in theory, can easily collect a picture of personal data, but here it is difficult to find the TIN by name or phone number, and without this do not compare this data. But even if somehow the DIT gets access to the TIN database, there is still an important problem: more than 60% of the cases on the sites for renting apartments indicate, for example, a virtual number, "Mityunin argues.

"The current legislation does not contain a direct ban on the analysis of publicly available large data," says Yevgeny Oreshin, an adviser at the law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner Russia. According to him, now it is just discussed the question of what rules of the game to establish and not allow analysis of large data to companies. "Many of them have already been successfully used. Simply in this case, the obtained analysis results are difficult to use as official evidence of the actual rent of an apartment and non-payment of tax, "he added.

The lawyer of the Moscow central branch of the Moscow Regional Bar Association, Lyubov Kiseleva, notes that the information on the sites about renting apartments speaks only of the intention of the owners to lease them, it is still necessary to prove that this intention was realized and the lease is concluded. She explains that the tax can request bank statements and interview owners and tenants, but it will still be difficult to prove the commercial nature of the relationship, especially if the calculations were made in cash. "Identifying potential tax evaders can also be done differently: for example," walk "for those who own more than one apartment," - suggests senior lawyer of BGP Litigation Denis Savin.