Siluanov expects a one-time business contribution of about 300 billion rubles

The Ministry of Finance expects that a one-time voluntary contribution of business to the budget will amount to about 300 billion rubles, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in an interview with Russia 24 TV channel. Now there is an active discussion in what form it will be made, he noted.

According to Siluanov, proposals are being prepared for relevant amendments to tax legislation. “Most likely, this participation will be in the form of fees from businesses, from that part of the increase in financial results in recent years, while 2022 and 2021 are considered compared to 2019 and 2020,” he said.

The issue of participation in this contribution of small businesses, as well as the oil and gas sector is not considered, said Siluanov. “Because we have recently adopted a number of tax innovations in the oil and gas sector, which already centralize part of the additional rent that this sector received as a result of the price situation,” the head of the Ministry of Finance said.

On February 8, First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov said that the government was discussing a one-time voluntary contribution to the budget with big business. “This is not a tax increase, but the so-called windfall tax (windfall tax),” he said. Belousov explained that last year the financial results of many companies were “very good.”

Vedomosti wrote February 9, that the largest companies will pay extra to the budget, including through the recalculation of the amount of income tax, taking into account the adjustment of the currency revaluation balance. The discussion arose because of relaxations in the principles of accounting for income and expenses from exchange rate differences. Against the background of the growth of the dollar to 100 rubles. and above, companies were allowed to temporarily not take into account paper income from the revaluation of foreign exchange assets – otherwise, organizations would have to pay an increased income tax as a result of converting the value of property into rubles. After the ruble began to rapidly strengthen, the norm from the support measure began to be used for tax optimization, a source close to the government explained.

As Deputy Finance Minister Aleksey Sazanov noted on February 15, the contribution of large businesses to the budget can be introduced both as an alternative payment and as a mandatory one. “We have not yet decided on how it will be considered, and its size. As soon as we find a consolidated position with a business here, the next step will be determined with the form of its implementation – this may be a mandatory payment [или] voluntary,” the deputy minister noted (quote from Interfax).

The Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) did not support the idea of ​​a voluntary contribution to the budget. Business considers it unrealizable, said RBC head of the organization Alexander Shokhin. As an alternative, the RSPP proposes that the government consider issuing a new type of OFZ (government bonds linked, among other things, to the budget deficit), investing in social projects (for example, in infrastructure that both businesses and the population need), developing public-private partnerships, or increase in income tax by 0.5 percentage points, said Shokhin.

The government does not support the proposal of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs to raise income tax, a spokesman for the Ministry of Finance said. Additional market revenues were formed not in the entire economy as a whole, but only in its individual sectors and individual taxpayers – accordingly, the effect of such a measure for different industries will be unequal, the ministry stressed.

According to the current law on the federal budget, revenues for 2023 are planned in the amount of 26.1 trillion rubles, expenses – 29 trillion, thus, the deficit is expected at the level of 2.9 trillion, or 2% of GDP.

Siluanov calls infrastructure, sectors of the economy that provide technological independence, social support, the needs of the power bloc and the development of new regions as priority areas for spending. The budget deficit this year will correspond to the plan (2%), the minister believes. “We will not go beyond its parameters,” he said.

At the end of January 2023, the federal budget was executed with a deficit of 1.76 trillion rubles, follows from a preliminary estimate of the Ministry of Finance. Expenses reached 3.1 trillion rubles, exceeding the figure for the same period last year by 59%. Revenues amounted to almost 1.4 trillion rubles, which is 35% lower than in January last year.