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Russian maintenance order

The ruling of Russian Court dated 2007 partially satisfied Marina Sorokina’s claim for spousal support against her husband Vitaly Sorokin.

According to Art. 89 of the Family Code of the Russian Federation spouses shall support each other financially. According to Art. 90 of the Family Code of the Russian Federation a disabled low-income ex-spouse who’s become disabled prior to the marriage dissolution or within a year after the marriage dissolution is entitled to claim spousal support in a judicial proceeding.

The ruling entered into force on 2008 by decision of the Judicial Division for Civil Cases of Regional Court.

The cassational ruling says that Marina Sorokina became handicapped on Decemner 11, 1997. The English version of the cassational ruling of Regional Court was falsified and a different date, December 11, 2007, was indicated in the translation of the cassational ruling into English which is 10 years later!

The materials of the case prove that Sorokin left the USA in August 1995. If his wife became handicapped on October 1997 his departure would have meant that he left his wife when she was helpless and had no means of subsistence and in this case he would have had to support her in the future.

But we see that the official information was falsified, which can be easily proved.

The family relationship between the parties was terminated in October 1997, which was confirmed by both parties in the court session.

The parties didn’t dispute termination of the family relationship in 1997. Thus, Sorokina’s disease and following disability in 2007 happened after termination of the family relationship when parties lived separately in different countries, they didn’t communicate with each other and didn’t know each other’s addresses. Therefore, the husband is not responsible for his wife’s disability that happened 10 years after termination of the family relationship. Moreover, neither the disability onset date nor the dis... Read More »

HAS LIFE BECOME TOO COMPLEX?

Life at its core is really quite simple: We are born, we exist for a time, and we die. It is only in the human mind that life becomes complex. We make life out to be a puzzle to be figured out. Yet, to our consternation, the puzzle is unsolvable; for life, at most untimely occasions, will deviously add new puzzle pieces to the game. Ontology, the philosophy of reality, seeks to know if complexity exists in the real world. The Greek philosopher and skeptic Carneades proposed that no assertion is ever known with certainty and humans live in a universal uncertainty. This prescient state of not knowing is stressful. Do we then create complexity in a futile attempt to relieve our stress?
Leopold Bloom’s now iconic saunter through Dublin on June 16, 1904 was made a heroic Odyssey by James Joyce in his groundbreaking novel Ulysses. In Homer’s Greek epic poem, The Odyssey, Ulysses’ journey is heroic because he achieves his goal of getting home to Ithaca, overcoming magic, monsters and the God’s anger. Does our workaday life require heroic effort to survive the day? Perhaps, but our mental convolutions certainly exacerbate the daily distress making the journey more arduous than it need be.
Eleanor Roosevelt said, “A little simplification would be the first step toward rational living, I think.”

COMPLICATING YOUR TAX LIFE
Many individuals violate the KISS principle (keep it simple stupid) and unnecessarily complicate their tax lives by trying to appear sophisticated or outsmart the IRS or simply without thinking about what it is they are seeking to accomplish and the full consequences of their actions. Some choices that often accomplish little but complicate one’s tax existence are:

1. FOREIGN BANK OR BROKERAGE ACCOUNTS
Foreign accounts are troublesome whether or not one reports the account and income from the account.
a. If you own or have signature authority or a financial interest in an unreported foreign financial account, the pos... Read More »

IRS PRIVATE LETTER RULING INTERPRETS U.S.-RUSSIAN FEDERATION INCOME TAX TREATY

Private Letter Ruling 201027041 released on July 9, 2010 interprets the U.S.-Russian Federation Income Tax Treaty (Treaty) Article 13 dealing with Independent Personal Services.
The ruling deals with an individual who is a resident of Russia but a citizen of another country, not the U.S. The individual is a partner in the Moscow office of a service partnership which performs services and has an base office in the United States. The individual in question, however, spends less than 183 days in a calendar year in the United States.
Under U.S. tax law partnerships are not taxed but the partners are deemed to carry on the partnership’s activities pro-rata. Thus, each partner is considered to conduct the business of the partnership as if he or she conducted such business individually. Absent the Treaty the individual in question would under U.S. tax law be deemed to personally conduct a trade or business in the United States and would be taxed on his or her pro-rata share of partnership income effectively connected with that trade or business.
Article 13 of the Treaty states in part:
1. Income derived by a individual who is a resident of a Contracting State from the performance of independent services shall be taxable on in that State, unless:
a. Such services are performed or were performed in the other Contracting State; and
b. The income is attributable to a fixed base which the individual has or had regularly available to him in that other State; and
c. Such individual is present or was present in that other State for a period or periods exceeding in the aggregate 183 days in the calendar year.
2. The term “independent personal services” includes in particular, independent scientific, literary, artistic, educational or teaching activities, as well as the independent services of physicians, lawyers, engineers, architects, dentists, and accountants.
Under U.S. tax law specific treaty provisions override general U.S. tax law rules.
The U.S. Treasury ... Read More »

REASONS FOR DECISION

[1] These are my reasons and decision in the appeal of Appellant who appeals the refusal to approve the permanent resident visa application of his wife(Applicant) who applied to immigrate to Canada as a member of the family class.

[2] This couple married in Russia and the Appellant subsequently filed an application to sponsor his wife for immigration to Canada. The Applicant was interviewed by a visa officer in Moscow. It was following that interview that the visa officer refused her application to immigrate to Canada pursuant to section 4 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (the "Regulations ") on the grounds that the visa officer concluded the marriage was not genuine and had been entered into by the Applicant primarily for the purpose of acquiring any status or privilege under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (the "Act").


[3] Section 4(1) of the Regulations provides as follows:
4.(1) Bad Faith - For the purposes of these Regulations, a foreign national shall not be considered a spouse, a common-law partner or a conjugal partner of a person if the marriage, common-law partnership or conjugal partnership
(a) was entered into primarily for the purpose of acquiring any status or privilege under the Act; or,
(b) is not genuine.

[4] In order for a foreign national to be caught by subsection 4(1) of the Regulations, the preponderance of reliable evidence must demonstrate that the marriage is not genuine or was entered into primarily for the purpose of acquiring a status or privilege under the Act. The onus is on an Appellant to demonstrate that the Applicant is not caught by the excluding provisions of the Regulations.
[5] The visa officer wrote a lengthy and detailed letter outlining the reasons for the refusal, which I will briefly state. The first concern was that the marriage was prepared in haste after the Appellant arrived in Russia and immediately proposed to the Applicant. The Applicant informed th... Read More »

About annulment of marriage

Based on the submitted documents, marriage 1 between Husband and Wife 2, was registered by the Marriage Palace № 4 of the Civil Status Division of Moscow on 2009. This marriage was dissolved on 2010 based on a decision of the Justice of Peace of the judicial district of the Moscow Region.

At the same time I received info about marriage 2 from 2007 and Certification of Final Decree about dissolution of marriage between Husbund and Wife 1 from 2009 with regard to the case. Based on the above documents, it is evident that Husband was officially married to Wife 1 since 2007 till 2009.

Thus, as of the date of stage registration of marriage between Husband and Wife 2, Husband was officially married to another person.

In accordance with Article 12, part 2 of the Family Code of the Russian Federation, marriage may not be concluded, if there are circumstances specified in Article 14 of the Family Code of the Russian Federation, i.e.: it is not possible to register marriage between persons, if at least one of them is officially married to another person.

In accordance with Article 27 of the Family Code of the Russian Federation, marriage shall be deemed invalid in case of failure to meet terms and conditions set forth in the Family Code of the Russian Federation. The marriage shall be deemed invalid since the date of its registration. The marriage that was deemed invalid by the court shall not create rights and obligations set forth in the law.

In accordance with Article 27, part 2 of the Family Code of the Russian Federation, the marriage shall be declared invalid in a judicial procedure. The marriage may not be declared invalid after its annulment, except cases, when one of the spouses as of the date of registration of the marriage was officially married to another person.

Thus, based on the submitted documents, we may make an indisputable conclusion about invalidity of marriage between Husband and Wife 2 that was registered at the time when Husband was... Read More »