Anastasia Manuilova about the prospects of competition for concealing income

Although in many of its characteristics Vladimir Putin’s election campaign differed little from previous ones, there was still one important difference. If until now one of the main goals in ensuring social stability in the country was the fight against poverty, now the government has been asked to focus on “fairness” in the coming years, which is proposed to be achieved by introducing a progressive tax scale, which also involves a stepwise increase in personal income tax.

The choice of the topic of justice instead of poverty is quite understandable – thanks to the introduction of a single benefit in the Russian Federation, the level of the latter in the country has been consistently decreasing since 2020, and the trajectory is unlikely to change if it has stood the test of the pandemic and the military operation in Ukraine. A more equitable distribution of income, in turn, is an idea no less popular among the population, and the situation has not changed in the last 20 years: in terms of income inequality, the Russian Federation ranks quite high in almost any ranking.

However, the proposed progressive school of taxation, although it will probably make it possible to redistribute more funds in favor of first the state, and then, possibly, needy groups of the population, will inevitably lead to the fact that part of this money will go into the shadows. Yes, of course, the Ministry of Finance and the Federal Tax Service will strive to prevent this (see Kommersant on March 19), but monitoring how much someone gets and for what work will be complicated – especially if both employers and employees are interested in this.

Obviously, in the concept of “fairness”, the greatest attention of controllers will be focused on the salaries of highly paid workers, including top managers and company executives – and in general to the 15% (according to Rosstat) of the best-earning Russians, whose labor income exceeds 100 thousand rubles. . per month and growing at an accelerated pace. Over the past year, the turnover of recruitment companies has in some cases doubled – even though the number of vacancies they filled in 2023 remained approximately the same compared to 2022. The state plans to redistribute fees from this category of citizens in favor of the poor. The paradox, however, is that, in addition to hiding high salaries, in Russia there is also a practice of underestimating low ones – in order to preserve the right to social benefits that are due to households with incomes below the poverty threshold (see, for example, Kommersant on December 1 ). As a result, “justice” will be pulled in their direction by both the richest and the “insufficiently” poor. How much in this situation the government will be able to maintain a balance in monitoring the actions of both is still unknown.