A little bit of good mineral extraction tax - Newspaper Kommersant No. 21 (7466) of 02/06/2023

A little bit of good mineral extraction tax - Newspaper Kommersant No. 21 (7466) of 02/06/2023



Oil and gas revenues of the federal budget in January amounted to 425.5 billion rubles, follows from the statistics of the Ministry of Finance published on Friday. This was the minimum for almost two and a half years, since August 2020 (at that time 404.9 billion rubles were collected). January budget revenues from the production and sale of oil and gas compared to December revenues (931.5 billion rubles) fell immediately by 54%, and compared to January 2021 - by 47%. Before the base level of oil and gas revenues planned for January (585.1 billion rubles), the budget did not have enough 159.6 billion rubles.

The main reason for such a significant drop in revenues in these two cases is different. Relative to December, the January collapse was the result of the termination of additional MET receipts from Gazprom. Recall that earlier the authorities ordered the corporation to pay the budget in October-December 2022 in three equal tranches of a “one-time” MET for a total of 1.244 trillion rubles. (see Kommersant dated November 14, 2022). Gazprom gave this money to the budget instead of paying dividends to shareholders for 2021. As a result, when additional payments ended, the amount of gas MET fell from the December 466.8 billion rubles. to only 44.3 billion rubles. in January.

Relative to the level of January 2021, the drop is explained by a noticeable reduction in Russian oil prices. According to the Ministry of Finance, on average, a barrel of Urals in the first month of 2023 cost $49.48 compared to $85.64 a year earlier, that is, 1.7 times less. In January, collections of the oil severance tax decreased significantly and amounted to 364.1 billion rubles. against 474.8 billion rubles. December.

The January drop in oil and gas revenues led to the fact that in February the Ministry of Finance, in accordance with the updated budget rule, will increase sales of yuan from the National Welfare Fund by almost three times. On Friday, the department announced that it would allocate 160.2 billion rubles for the sale of foreign currency - 8.9 billion rubles each. in a day. Such interventions, carried out in the foreign exchange market with the help of the Central Bank, will be carried out from February 7 to March 6. In the previous period, from January 13 to February 6, the Ministry of Finance directed the sale of yuan for 54.5 billion rubles, 3.2 billion rubles each. daily. Then, we recall, operations in the foreign exchange market were resumed according to the budgetary rule after a ten-month pause announced after the start of the military operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine.

Vadim Visloguzov



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