Free “overdue” for Russians: the last obstacle named

“It’s barbaric when food is destroyed and everything is thrown into the trash…”

Businessmen will be obliged to feed pensioners and the poor with expired food free of charge. To do this, they will have to create special social regiments. The corresponding bill was submitted to the State Duma for consideration on Wednesday, January 10.

It is aimed at any food stores and facilities in which goods will be distributed to needy citizens or donated to public charities. These goods can go to any establishment where they can be safely consumed.

In the explanatory note to the bill, deputies note that the annual volume of food waste in the country is 17 million tons, and their value is 1.6 trillion rubles. A third of all food is thrown away, and the largest amount of food waste comes from essential goods: grains and dairy products, as well as vegetables. “At the same time, over 60% of citizens pay about half of their monthly income for food, almost all of their earnings go to food for 16%. If all the products thrown away in Russia were sent to people, this would feed about 30 million people,” the deputies say in the explanatory note of the bill.

Now stores or retail chains collectively pay 40% of the cost of their products in taxes, regardless of how they sold them: sold them, sold them at a discount, or gave them away. According to current legislation, it is easier for a business to destroy these products in order to avoid paying taxes than to transfer them to the population free of charge. In order to avoid the continuation of such an absurd situation, deputies from the LDPR faction decided to make changes to the Tax Code.

“VAT is to blame for everything, which needs to be reset,” Yaroslav Nilov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Labor, Social Policy and Veterans Affairs, tells MK. – The only way to avoid the tax is to recycle the products. Hence such a ruthless method – just so as not to be accused of VAT evasion.

Today it is more profitable for a businessman to destroy goods and not pay VAT. This is barbarism when food is destroyed and everything is thrown into the trash, while pensioners and poor people still fight for the right to access this trash. It is unacceptable! Previously, bulldozers used cameras to destroy absolutely safe and even healthy products, spending huge amounts of money on this. This also applies to non-food items that can be distributed.

We need to put everything into a civilized direction: not to force business, because this can lead to higher prices or even the closure of small retail outlets, but to resolve the issue by zeroing out VAT. Under no circumstances should anything be destroyed. Everything must be used for state and municipal needs – both food and non-food products. Some steps have already been taken in this direction.

Many stores are already selling products with expiration dates at deep discounts, or giving them away by creating social shelves. Some destroy such goods. Expired goods are prohibited from sale, but there are those who give expired goods to homeless animals.

– What arguments do opponents of your initiative give?

– Use it as a tax evasion. In addition to lost income (losses from regulated prices), there is always a risk that entrepreneurs will start using gray schemes. For example, goods will supposedly be distributed without paying tax, and then this product will be resold under some other documents.

With modern control and administration, this risk exists, but it is not so great. We must think about our citizens who need help and we cannot take a barbaric approach to the disposal of products, but we must help.

It is necessary to remove merchants from VAT – the most important thing in this case, – emphasizes Yaroslav Nilov, – because the additional tax burden makes this transfer of goods almost impossible for most stores. Businessmen prefer to throw products into a landfill, thereby creating a stampede, creating an absolutely ugly, incorrect, inhumane background when a large number of people gather around the garbage dump, stampeding and fighting for these goods.

“The bill is aimed at excluding food products with an expiring shelf life from the list of objects of taxation, which will allow them to be exempt from VAT in the event of gratuitous transfer to third parties. Thus, the problem of subsequent processing of this category of goods and their shortage among certain social groups will be simultaneously solved,” the explanatory note says. At the same time, it is proposed to exclude baby and dietary food products and alcohol from the list of goods that can be transferred to the population.

A bill that would zero out VAT for the charitable distribution of goods with an expiring expiration date is being concluded by the Cabinet of Ministers of the Russian Federation. If the law is passed, it will come into force in the new financial year.