Give me ten!

The entire last week before the new year 2004, employees of the Seventh Continent network of metropolitan supermarkets re-pasted price tags - in total, more than 5,000 pieces of paper had to be replaced. The management of the stores decided to tear their subordinates away from New Year's Eve troubles for the sake of the common good: the retail chain joined the “Minus 5%” campaign, designed to demonstrate to deputies and consumers the benefits of abolishing the sales tax. But the efforts of traders were in vain: only a few agreed to bring down prices, and even these 5% were quickly eaten up by inflation.

Now they have a chance to work with profit: the Kremlin is thinking of reintroducing the sales tax, but now forever and twice as much - 10% instead of 5%. And not for the sake of money, as after the default of 1998, but for reasons of fairness: the current value-added tax, which buyers ultimately also pay, is too inconvenient for companies, and fraudsters, using loopholes in the law, also extort part of the fees from him from the budget. From an economic point of view, if the 18% VAT is abolished and replaced with a 10% sales tax, the budget will suffer slightly, but the population will definitely not get worse. Only now the merchants of economic laws, first of all, comprehend the one that orders to sell as expensive as possible. And they will gladly take advantage of the extra opportunity to get deeper into the wallets of Russians. No matter how much they love theory, they will not be fed up with calculations alone.

The bottom line is that the entire production chain pays VAT, that is, for example, a flour manufacturer, a pasta factory, a wholesale supplier, and a retail store where hundreds of other products are sold besides spaghetti. And, of course, the buyer too, only he is usually not warned about this. The tax is simply included in the price. Then the difference between what the company paid its suppliers and the amount that it added in the form of tax to the price of its finished products is calculated - the final figure is the company's obligation to the budget !!!. But the treasury should return the tax to exporters in full - because they will pay it anyway in the country where they are transporting their goods.

This is where abuses arise: VAT is taken from the treasury for fictitious, not real, exports. Officials suggest that in this way the state wallet has become poorer by 100 billion rubles. in just one last year. And imported goods, for which you have to pay tax in Russia, many entrepreneurs prefer to transport “past” customs or underestimate the cost, from which they take 18%, says Dmitry Yanin, chairman of the board of the International Confederation of Consumer Societies.

The more they steal, the tougher the authorities react - and with their endless checks they drive conscientious businessmen to a white heat. And still in every possible way they are pulling with the return of the tax. For example, Russia's largest exporter of tobacco products, the Donskoy Tabak factory, has been trying for six months to get not even money from its inspection, but at least an answer whether they will ever return it. If the tax authorities officially refuse, it will be possible to go to court, explains Sergey Sapotnitsky, a representative of the company. In the meantime, not a word or a word from them, the company has $ 1.5 million hanging - "a tangible amount." The way out, however, is straightforward: Donskoy Tobacco simply raised prices, even though Sapotnitsky grumbles that they were forced to.

It turns out a vicious circle, which has not been broken for many years. The sales tax, which exists instead of VAT in three countries (USA, Canada and Japan), seems to Arkady Dvorkovich, head of the president's expert department, to be an "undoubtedly profitable" alternative. Only the "end" buyers - the population, as well as government agencies and enterprises, will pay such a tax if they purchase goods and services not in order to produce something with their help. This eliminates the need to keep complex offsets, and everything is in order with export.

Experts from the Center for the Study of Taxation Problems at the Financial Academy have calculated that even if 40% of companies cheat the state with a new tax, the budget will not lose anything - more precisely, it will not receive as much as it was planned if VAT was reduced to 13% in three years. Just how the tax authorities, who are now unable to control the largest payers, are going to monitor half a million retail companies - the main fees will come from them - is completely incomprehensible to Yanin from ConfOP.

Small business prefers not to get involved with the authorities on principle. Nikolai, a young fur trader, winds up his LLC every time it comes time to pay taxes - he buys something else for a penny. He says that most of his acquaintances work the same way: “Look how many ads in the newspapers about the sale of ready-made companies with their subsequent liquidation!” But when they tried to introduce a sales tax in addition to VAT, Moscow provided a third of all its fees, and another 20% - no less pragmatic suburbs and St. Petersburg. So the current mood of the sellers should plunge the tax authorities into despondency.

But the main danger that the Kremlin also foresaw is that even those who do not deign to pay to the budget will still raise prices, and it’s good, if only by 10%. And the “disappearance” of the VAT, due to which, in theory, everything should become cheaper, businessmen “will not notice”: demand may not increase, so what is the reason to miss the profit, the manager of a large enterprise producing drinks argues. According to his forecast, even if someone honestly rewrites the price tags, this will not be for long. In addition, there is a whole army of small entrepreneurs who, in principle, do not pay any VAT - instead of the main taxes, they have a single payment so as not to spend money on accounting. And if a sales tax is added to it, they will definitely raise prices, Elena Ivanovna, the owner of several clothing stores in Krasnoyarsk, promises. She personally does not care: she will collect 10% and give it to the budget, but not every buyer, the Krasnoyarsk businesswoman is afraid, will agree to such an extra charge.

There have been negative experiences. In 2002, officials decided to introduce VAT on medicines, which previously, like bread and other essential goods, were not subject to this tax. Provided preferential rate - not 18%, but 10%. But in one quarter, entrepreneurs unanimously added all 30% to their prices, Alexander Ivaneev, deputy head of the tax department of the Ministry of Finance, recalls with horror. And people were forced to buy, because tax innovations do not improve their health in any way.

You can’t refuse housing and communal services or travel by public transport, and Yanin is sure that the highly monopolized cellular communications sector or builders will certainly interpret the introduction of a new tax as an excuse to take more from the consumer. For some grandmother who is not very versed in tax tricks, the argument “officials raised the tax by 10%” will act “reinforced concrete,” Ivaneev believes.

Maxim Kulikov, head of the group that calculated the consequences of the reform, does not hide the fact that the choice between two taxes is the choice of the less terrible of two evils. Dvorkovich, too, has no illusions: he says that the Kremlin "well understands" how many problems will arise with the replacement - they can outweigh any benefits.

But, in the end, these problems will have to be solved by a completely different government. So far, the officials have started only a discussion, and the reform itself will take place in two years, that is, after the presidential elections. Before that, a source close to the presidential administration promises, they will figure out how not to offend small businesses (perhaps they will reduce the single social tax and, in principle, abolish all simplified systems), and will “talk” in detail with manufacturers and sellers. As an option, they will gradually reduce VAT and gradually, starting from 1%, introduce a sales tax.

And even if it doesn't work out very well, the changes made after the elections will only hurt the electorate, not the authorities. After all, when in 2004 voters were stunned by the monetization of social benefits, not a single official lost his seat, recalls Alexei Makarkin from the Center for Political Technologies. Or maybe, having decided everything, they change their mind: a change of power always means a redistribution of spheres of influence, and it is not a fact that new leaders will want to touch the tax system in the first place.