Beneficiaries will be required to invest – Newspaper Kommersant No. 192 (7393) dated 10/15/2022

From 2024, the Ministry of Finance intends to limit the provision of investment tax benefits to businesses under preferential regimes, said Alexei Sazanov, deputy head of the department. The main option is to link their receipt with the amount of investment in fixed assets, research and development (R&D). This should cut off from the preferences of a one-day firm. In general, investment incentives now cost the budget system 2 trillion rubles. in year. At the same time, all 12 preferential regimes (special economic zones, special investment contracts, investment tax deductions, and so on) tested by the Ministry of Finance for effectiveness were found to be in need of “adjustment”.

The Ministry of Finance does not plan to systematically change preferential regimes, but intends to set them up in such a way that fly-by-night firms cannot use benefits. Alexey Sazanov spoke about such plans of the department at a meeting with business representatives on tax policy issues. According to him, two options are being considered. The first is to link the receipt of benefits with the size of the company’s investment in fixed capital, research and development (R&D). “This will immediately exclude one-day firms from preferential regimes, because they do not carry out investment activities or any other in principle,” the deputy minister explained the idea.

The second option is to limit the use of preferential regimes for certain types of economic activity (according to the OKVED classifier codes) – where preferences “are not objectively required, since they do not stimulate investment in the regions.” Aleksey Sazanov cited trade as an example of such activity. He specified that the Ministry of Finance intends to formalize its proposals by the end of this year in order to prepare their introduction from 2024.

It should be noted that the Ministry of Finance has been approaching the topic of the effectiveness of investment incentives for a long time, but right now a research base has been put into operation for this research – this year the analytical system “Effectiveness of Benefits” was put into operation (the initial data for it were taken from the subsystems of the AIS “Tax-3” of the Federal Tax Service services). The new system makes it possible to assess the impact of preferences on the dynamics of investment, employment, labor costs and R&D of specific taxpayers and compare indicators with industry averages.

As follows from the “Main Directions of the Budget, Tax and Customs Tariff Policy for 2023–2025” submitted to the State Duma as part of the budget package, for the five analyzed years (2017–2021) the volume of shortfalls in revenues of all levels of the budget system of the Russian Federation due to investment incentives increased from 0.8 trillion rubles. up to 2 trillion rubles This is a quarter of the total tax expenditures (benefits) of the budget. It is reported that according to the results of the automated assessment, taxpayers were assigned one of two statuses. “Green” – if the benefit does not lead to the company’s excess profitability (return on assets and operating margin), or if the company is actively investing, increasing the number of employees and spending on R&D. “Red” status, respectively, means that the benefit generates excess profitability, or the investment activity of the taxpayer applying it is low, the staff is not expanding, and investments in development are not growing.

If the share of revenue of “red” taxpayers in the turnover of all users of a particular pre-rate exceeds 70%, then it is recognized by the Ministry of Finance as requiring additional adjustment. If the threshold is exceeded only in certain industries, then the need to introduce additional obligations for business is fixed. The same approach is applied to stand-alone investment incentives.

Based on an analysis of 12 existing preferential regimes and 23 separate investment tax incentives (updated July 1, 2022), most of them “can be considered effective,” the document says. At the same time, all 12 pre-restrictions with a total volume of shortfall in income of 177.8 billion rubles. “require adjustments”. We are talking, in particular, about the regimes of special economic zones, special investment contracts (SPIC), investment tax deductions, the Free Port of Vladivostok, as well as special economic zones in the Kaliningrad and Magadan regions, and territories of advanced socio-economic development in the Far East. In almost all cases, the Ministry of Finance considers it necessary to secure additional obligations for investment, or headcount, or R&D spending.

Vadim Visloguzov