Russian tycoons surrender residency to avoid declaring offshore assets

Moscow

SOME of Russia's super-rich have given up residency to escape a 2014 law requiring them to disclose offshore assets, wealthy businessmen told Reuters, a practice that could keep billions of dollars hidden from Moscow's tax authorities.

Interviews with more than a dozen people familiar with the practice - including prominent tycoons, wealth managers, lawyers and current and former officials - suggest a swathe of Russia's national wealth is now in the hands of a new class of semi-exiled oligarchs, who keep bases in their homeland but escape its tax net by spending fewer than 183 days a year there.