Scream "rob!"

(Photo: Yuri Feklistov )

The Moscow mayor, studying the draft metropolitan budget last week, probably wept. The tax reform launched by the federal authorities next year will deprive the capital of at least 40-45 billion rubles. This figure is comparable to the fifth part of the planned revenues of the city budget next year.

At a meeting of the government dedicated to the approval of the draft main financial document, the mayor painted the gloomy pictures of the life of Muscovites. The construction and development of the subway will be rolled up, since the regional road fund will be halved (from it the capital authorities allocated about 3 billion rubles a year to the construction of the subway). “Someone in the government decided for unknown reasons to eliminate the tax that all business entities were ready to pay,” the Moscow mayor complained. According to him, it will also be necessary to turn off the road construction and repair of the highways, as a result of which about 10 thousand people can be left without work. In general, the situation in the labor market will deteriorate sharply, since the Ministry of Labor plans to reduce the powers of city employment services, leaving behind them only the function of accounting for the unemployed and the payment of benefits.

The first deputy head of the Department of Economic Policy and Development of the capital Valery Zharov added that Muscovites should prepare for the growth of utility tariffs by 20-25%. And a week earlier it became known that in Moscow there is also an increase in sales tax from 4 to 5%.

The offended mayor went on to action. To begin with, he threatened that he could sue the federal authorities if they do not give deductions of 6 billion rubles laid by Moscow for the performance of federal functions (though it turned out that the federal authorities waited not live money, but shares of privatized enterprises, and the term of transfer of shares has not yet ended).

Then the mayor went to Va-Bank, saying that the federal government with its innovations arranged for the capital the Forsmazhor and the city will not be able to pay for its obligations. And he undertook a bypass maneuver, reporting an alleged agreement with Alexei Kudrin on transferring to the federal budget of capital's debt obligations to the federal budget. (Luzhkov’s complaints about a sharp reduction in income, Deputy Prime Minister said in the Duma that he was ready to discuss the problem of regional debts.) Kudrin’s refutation did not force himself to wait long: they say, no one agreed with anyone, and the panic about the Tax Code is not appropriate, since the capital has many hidden reserves to replenish the budget. Last year, the volume of benefits to the metropolitan enterprises exceeded 16 billion rubles, and for the first half of this year amounted to 10 billion rubles. In addition, out of 700 thousand legal entities registered in Moscow, no more than a third submit tax reports, and only the sixth part actually pays taxes.

The sharp rebuke of the federal center was reinforced by the usual methods: news agencies suddenly reported to initiate 30 criminal cases against Moscow officials. The mayor had to shut up. Apparently for a long time.