Large business revenues are stable

Kommersant got acquainted with the analysis of data on income and taxation of superprofits of the largest companies in the Russian Federation, which will be published today. Aktion Accounting has studied how exactly the tax on excess profits discussed by the Ministry of Finance to replenish the budget will be distributed among the largest companies in the Russian Federation. A study by the ACRA rating agency on the stability of the profits of the top 50 companies in the Russian Federation over the past ten years shows that the concentration of business allows them to consistently earn almost regardless of the conditions for doing business with a relatively low debt burden. The researchers’ works are not related to each other, but taken together they show that the trend for “one-time” withdrawals by the government of large business funds in recent years to cover the budget deficit is more a trend than a coincidence.

Analysts from the ACRA rating agency in a recent study calculated the funds of the largest Russian companies – the total revenue of the top 50 enterprises reached 66 trillion rubles in 2022, an increase of 4% by 2021. The indicator is considered one of the indicators of economic stability. According to ACRA, since 2012, the largest companies’ revenue growth has outstripped the GDP dynamics, which indicated an increase in the concentration of the Russian economy. Thus, the ratio of top 50 revenue to GDP since 2019 has been 42–49%. Although the contribution of the largest companies slightly decreased in 2022 (to 44% after 48% in 2021), ACRA analysts note a trend towards consolidation in many sectors and predict that the figure will approach the level of 50% in 2023–2025. The main share falls on oil and gas companies (their share in total revenue exceeds 50%), metallurgy and mining (11-13%).

Such indicators testify to the adaptability of the largest companies: until 2017, their revenues, on average, grew at the level of inflation, but since 2018, the average annual growth rate has even outpaced inflation, although the volatility of the indicator has increased markedly. Thus, the worst revenue growth rates (minus 15%) were recorded in the pandemic 2020 and post-crisis 2016 (2%). The debt load of the largest companies is also quite stable – the deterioration occurs in 2015 and 2020. “Deterioration of debt indicators in these years was not associated with an increase in debt in absolute terms, but with a certain decrease in incoming cash flows,” analysts note.

According to analysts, high growth rates of revenue and a low debt burden were ensured by the growth in the share of the largest Russian companies in GDP. The stable financial position of the largest companies explains the government’s interest in them as a source of replenishment of the deficit budget. Recently, the Commission on Legislative Activities agreed on a bill on the tax on excess profits of previous years – the base rate will be 10% of the difference between the company’s profits in 2021-2022 and 2018-2019. Since the legislation prohibits the introduction of new taxes during the year, the fee will be paid in 2024. But due to the budget’s need for additional revenue, this year the government will reduce the rate to 5% if the payment is made ahead of schedule (from October 1 to November 30).

Profit will be calculated as the sum of tax bases for corporate income tax, taking into account the carry forward of losses from previous periods – from amounts less than 1 billion rubles. payment will not have to be made. Also, the regime will not affect payers of the unified agricultural tax and fuel and energy companies. The Ministry of Finance estimated the proceeds from windfall tax at 300 billion rubles.

Estimates of the distribution of this load by industry were provided to Kommersant by analysts from Aktion Accounting (part of the Aktion group). In total, the tax will affect about 900 out of 3.2 million companies (less than 1%). Among the industries that will replenish the budget the most as a result of the introduction of the new tax are metallurgy, financial services, and trade, which brought large excess profits in 2022. In the metallurgical industry, 34 mining enterprises will pay the payment for 48.4 billion rubles. and 23 manufacturers – by 17.5 billion rubles. Banks and other financial organizations (56) can pay about 30 billion rubles. In terms of the number of companies paying the tax, wholesale trade is the leader – 152 enterprises with a total amount of 25.8 billion rubles, 49 retail companies will account for 18.4 billion rubles. The tax per company ranges from 300,000 to 30 billion rubles, with a maximum per company in metal mining (1.4 billion rubles) and telecom (1 billion rubles).

Olga Soldatova, a leading expert at Aktion Accounting, considers it ambiguous that past profits are subject to tax, on which enterprises have already paid tax. “Moreover, this profit has already been distributed among the participants. A more optimal option for business is to introduce such taxes “forward” for the next tax periods, and not “backward”. It is possible that such taxes will actually appear, the bill creates a legal basis for this – it establishes the concept of a one-time tax and the procedure for its introduction, ”the expert draws attention.

Diana Galieva, Oleg Sapozhkov