Sazonov spoke about the Ministry of Finance’s plans to close loopholes to reduce personal income tax

Deputy Minister of Finance Alexey Sazonov announced the need to reduce the number of schemes for under-payment of personal income tax (NDFL). According to him, such work should be carried out as part of increasing tax fairness, which President Vladimir Putin spoke about.

“It is clear that there are mechanisms for tax optimization, including in personal income tax, which were laid down quite a long time ago. And if we are talking about increasing the fairness of taxation, then in the case of optimization mechanisms in personal income tax it will be necessary to level the conditions,” Mr. Sazonov said at the expanded board of the Federal Tax Service (quote from RBC).

According to Rosstat, in 2022 gray wages amounted to 11.7 trillion rubles, or 7.6% of GDP. Mechanisms for reduced personal income tax payment include “salaries in envelopes”, as well as the conclusion of fictitious self-employment contracts with employees instead of employment contracts.

On February 29, in a message to the Federal Assembly, President Vladimir Putin instructed to implement “a more equitable distribution of the tax burden.” In particular, we are talking about increasing the tax burden for people with higher incomes. According to the head of state, it is necessary to fix it in a new form before 2030. The Ministry of Finance reported that legislative initiatives on this topic are already ready.

Read more in the Kommersant article. “Tax will be calculated with income”.