Even-deduction

Deputies want to make taxes socially oriented

At high speed, the State Duma began discussing a package of tax amendments introduced by Vladimir Putin’s government last week. The relevant subcommittee and committee amendments passed without any problems. Deputies of the previous convocation can only wonder why their own amendments of similar content were previously blocked by the Ministry of Finance.

The tax package was introduced in four bills. The first, according to a rather strange logic, combines benefits for oil workers on the mineral extraction tax (MET), benefits for R&D and amendments that encourage employers to invest in the treatment and training of their employees. All together bears the long name of the draft law on creating favorable tax conditions for the implementation of an innovative scenario for economic development and improving the social security of citizens. By the second reading, scheduled for June 27, the Ministry of Finance, according to Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Shatalov, promises to clarify a number of positions regarding deposits that will be subject to tax holidays under the mineral extraction tax. Deputies also asked for clarity in the wording proposed by the amendments, that if an enterprise pays for training for an employee, the latter is required to sign an open-ended employment contract. “This is some kind of serfdom,” Deputy Chairman of the Budget Committee Andrei Makarov is perplexed.

The second bill concerns the optimization of tax regimes for small businesses and contains two major changes. Small businesses will be expanded to benefit from a simplified tax system based on patents, and local authorities will be prohibited from setting restrictions on small businesses' access to the patent system. Today, municipalities are trying to “drive” all small businesses to the “imputed tax” system, since the collections from this tax go to the municipal treasury.

The third bill on differentiation of excise rates introduces for taxation differentiation of gasoline by quality based on Euro 3, 4 and 5 standards, abolishing differentiation by octane number. This reduces the risk of artificially “finishing” gasoline to a certain octane number, since European standards evaluate the quality of fuel by the presence or absence of harmful impurities. The higher the class of gasoline, the lower the excise taxes will be.

Finally, the fourth bill removes salary restrictions on the use of deductions for citizens with children. Today the right to a monthly “children’s” deduction in the amount of 600 rubles. only those whose salary since the beginning of the year has not exceeded a cumulative total of 40 thousand rubles. Highly paid citizens thereby lose the right to deduction in the first month. The amendments propose removing the 40,000-ruble deduction threshold altogether, and increasing the deduction amount itself to 800 rubles.

According to a member of the budget committee, Raisa Karmazinna, who did not understand why the same amendments proposed by deputies in the previous Duma were not adopted, the Ministry of Finance version of the bill does not sufficiently take into account the property differentiation of the population. “Why not increase the deduction to 1,200 rubles. instead of 800, while simultaneously setting the salary threshold for receiving it at 1 million rubles,” she marvels.

According to deputies, it would be logical to act in a more radical way with the standard 400-ruble deductions intended to support the poor. Today, upon reaching a salary of 20 thousand rubles. the right to this deduction is lost, the Ministry of Finance proposes to expand the salary limit to 40 thousand rubles. According to the budget committee, it would be more correct to reduce the countless categories of deduction recipients, leaving deductions only for disabled people, but at the same time increase the deduction to 1,200 rubles. Sergei Shatalov agreed: “Purely symbolic standard deductions do little for citizens, seriously burdening the budget.” But he admitted that he could not solve this problem yet. “By depriving some categories of citizens of the deduction in favor of others, we will violate the Constitution,” explained the Deputy Minister of Finance.

Irina SKLYAROVA