The expert assessed taxes on crazy business income: “They will allow you to pay at a discount”

The Ministry of Finance expects to receive approximately 300 billion rubles

The Ministry of Finance expects that the rate of a one-time contribution from additional business profits for 2021-2022 will be about 5%, head of the financial department Anton Siluanov said at the RSPP congress. According to him, the government plans to fix the fee in the legislation in the spring session of parliament. Meanwhile, according to observers, the fiscal measure is still of a framework nature and requires further coordination.

According to the minister, in 2022, Russian business made a profit in the amount of 26 trillion rubles, and in 2021 – 34 trillion, against 14 trillion rubles on average per year in 2018-2019. Regulations on windfall tax (a tax on “revenues brought by the wind”) will come into force next year, but it will be possible to pay a contribution in the current one – the authorities expect this. The Ministry of Finance expects to receive approximately 300 billion rubles. As Siluanov noted, the fee will affect only 0.1% of companies – those whose pre-tax profit in 2021-2022 amounted to at least 1 billion rubles. The measure will not affect the oil and gas and coal sectors, as well as small and medium-sized businesses, Alexei Sazanov, Siluanov’s deputy, specified in mid-March.

As the head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Alexander Shokhin, said, in turn, formal amendments can be introduced from January 1, 2024, but companies can be allowed to pay a fee in advance with a discount.

“The story is quite old and is related to the fact that a number of large Russian companies received additional superprofits last year due to high export prices,” says Nikita Maslennikov, a leading expert at the Center for Political Technologies. – So thinks the Ministry of Finance, and quite reasonably. By the way, the business received super profits in 2021, when the global economy was recovering from the covid pandemic. Moreover, due to both external and internal factors. We remember how prices for metals, building materials, and fertilizers grew.”

As for the figure of 300 billion rubles (5% of the additional profit), it is small in terms of the budget, but this is not the point. We are talking about fairness, about equalizing the conditions for those companies that took advantage of favorable market conditions and those that were a priori deprived of such an opportunity. There is no draft law itself yet, and as far as one can understand from the leaks from the RUIE congress, the discussion continues. The counter message of business lies in a simple thesis: according to the established legislative practice, tax changes in the middle of this year are impossible. Only from January 1, 2024. Accordingly, Maslennikov notes, if the state needs money right now, let, logically, allow it to pay at a discount.