What is the government’s plan to support the creative industries

Assistance measures include several areas: regulatory legal support (note that the institution of creative industries is now enshrined not in a federal law, but in a regulatory legal act); development of human capital and educational system; infrastructure development; financial support, economic incentives and investments. In addition, the plan includes such sections as the protection and disposal of intellectual property; sustainable development of individual industries, as well as the development of digital services.

The section on financial support contains six activities – this is the attraction of venture financing (a report to the government is expected in the second quarter of 2024); creating conditions for financial support, including lending secured by intellectual property (in the fourth quarter of 2024); development and implementation of public-private and municipal-private partnership models (in the fourth quarter of 2024). Earlier, the press service of the Bank of Russia told Kommersant that intangible assets can be considered as collateral for a loan if they are liquid. This requires that there be an active market for intellectual property objects, through which transactions can be carried out quickly and a reliable valuation of such assets can be formed.

In addition, it is planned to work out the issue of creating an integral system of fair (proportional) remuneration to authors of sought-after results of intellectual activity, including in the scientific and technical field, including clarifying the payers of such remuneration and the mechanisms for their payment – this measure is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2024. The document also includes the study of issues of tax incentives and tax incentives.

“Certainly, the issues of taxation of creative entrepreneurship are the cornerstone. In the context of the creative industries, we are talking not so much about benefits, but about a different model for distributing the tax burden,” says Sergei Matveev, curator of the committee for interaction with the state of the Federation of Creative Industries. According to him, the existing model fairly distributes the load for the raw materials, industrial and manufacturing sectors. The economics of intellectual property has a different cycle of product creation and consumption. “And if we are serious about developing the creative sector, we need to apply a different model. The Concept for the Development of Creative Industries itself talks a lot about these barriers,” notes Sergey Matveev. So, he suggests looking at taxation issues not as benefits, but as a different model. “Let’s say, when VAT is abolished on the circulation of rights, something like a sales tax on the final product arises in return,” he gives an example.

“The approach fixed in the plan is most likely the product of interdepartmental compromises. It is possible to fulfill such a plan, but it is difficult to get a real effect,” says Andrei Krichevsky, head of the RSPP Committee on Intellectual Property and Creative Industries. He notes that the document obviously does not fully reflect the position of Mikhail Mishustin, who focused precisely on reducing the tax burden in order to “enable bright legalization” of creative citizens. Despite the fact that in the very concept the problems of the tax system are fully and accurately indicated: the VAT unusual for the creative sector and its distribution on the circulation of rights, remuneration to authors, the burden on investment in creative work, especially risky for an entrepreneur — in the plan, all this fit into only one point. Probably, these problems will be able to solve the interdepartmental and interregional office, which is provided for by the plan and which was proposed to be created in the form of a public-state organization, he recalled (for more details, see Kommersant of July 10).

Venera Petrova