Luxury tax

Why did Vladimir Putin’s proposal to introduce a “wealth fee” win approval even among the oligarchs?

Invitation to dialogue

Platinum piano? Please. A bed for the price of a luxury apartment? Nothing could be simpler. Gold embroidered carpet? Its own submarine, good thing it’s not nuclear? Desert island? Or maybe a residential skyscraper?

It is no secret that the annual millionaire fairs, which have recently become popular, are aimed mainly at Russians. True, not for everyone, but only for the rich. It is they who buy today wholesale and retail the entire Old and New World. It was they who were able to do what Pushkin and Lenin could not do - they gave the Russian language international status. In any case, sellers from the village of Puerto Banus near Marbella (the capital of Spanish luxury, where you can buy a Jaguar for yourself and a leash with diamonds for your dog) have long mastered the Moscow jargon. The yachts of our oligarchs are finally scaring away the natives of the Caribbean islands and Thailand. So Russian money floats away to no one knows where.
Previously, this caused open irritation only among poorer people. Now the authorities have expressed their position.

“The luxury tax is a kind of publicly recognized payment for abandoning investment in production in favor of overconsumption and vanity,” Vladimir Putin said in early February. And he proposed discussing the idea of ​​introducing such a tax during an open dialogue between society and entrepreneurs.

Society and entrepreneurs responded.

Careful, but not hostile

The prime minister's initiative was voiced at the 19th Congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, that is, at the congress of those who will have to pay the tax in the first place. It would seem that it would be just right for the oligarchs to take up arms against the authorities, but no. Forbes regulars greeted the initiative from above with caution, but not with hostility.

Right at the congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, a significant conversation took place between Vladimir Putin and the owner of Magnitogorsk, Viktor Rashnikov, from whom the same Forbes counted $13 billion. Putin invited the billionaire to evaluate his “luxurious” offer.

“You just voiced it, we need to digest it, see...” Rashnikov hesitated and exhaled: “Well, if that time has come...”
The audience laughed knowingly.

“Thank you, that’s a good answer,” Putin laughed in response.

However, the President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Alexander Shokhin, summed up the conversation very seriously:

– It seems symbolic to me that Vladimir Vladimirovich made a proposal to organize a public discussion about the introduction of a luxury tax in Russia within the framework of our congress. Today, when society is ready to actively participate in the life of the country, and the authorities are ready to listen to public opinion, we want to invite everyone to dialogue, to a broad discussion of the concept of the luxury tax bill. I think the RUIE platform is the most convenient for developing some kind of social contract on this issue. I am sure that the proposals that we will collect will be useful to everyone who is directly involved in the development of the new bill.

There were a lot of proposals.

"For" and "against"

On February 13, under the auspices of the RSPP, a series of all-Russian public discussions began with the participation of experts and officials, entrepreneurs and public activists in several regions of the country. The discussions that broke out were not sluggish.
Both supporters and opponents of the luxury tax had convincing arguments. While Deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Krasnoyarsk Territory Viktor Zubarev supported the idea of ​​the new bill (“Bragging has never been welcomed in Russia. And those who collect expensive things can share their income with those who need them”), then Sverdlovsk entrepreneurs, for example, assessed it categorically negatively (“The luxury tax can turn into a witch hunt”).

“It is important that the new tax does not become a bone of social discord, that it does not lead to the active departure of entrepreneurs abroad and the suppression of investment activity,” said Mikhail Cherepanov, first vice-president of the Sverdlovsk Regional Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.

“We conducted a survey in which two million people participated, it showed that 52 percent of the population are confident that the introduction of a luxury tax is the right measure,” Alexey Yurtaev, adviser to the Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Research, said at a round table in Yekaterinburg. – The government must respond to public sentiment. In many countries around the world, this measure makes wealth legitimate.

Most participants in the discussions admit that a luxury tax is necessary. And it is necessary not so much to replenish the treasury as to reduce the difference between the poor and the rich. But they doubt whether he will achieve his goal.

Tax is not a luxury

“The luxury tax, the introduction of which became one of the most qualitative ideas of Vladimir Putin’s presidential program, has a primarily symbolic value,” says Boris Kagarlitsky, director of the Institute of Globalization and Social Movements. – This step, perhaps, cannot be called populism; rather, it is worth stating that for the Prime Minister, the opinion of the majority of the population turned out to be more important than the opinion of various kinds of elites. As a result, today, taking a position “for” or “against” a new tax, we are determined rather by the question of whether we want to change the current state of affairs or whether we are completely satisfied with the gap between rich and poor, the social disproportions that we have. By and large, this is not just about taxes. The luxury tax turns out to be a kind of political signal to society: social policy will change.

What is important in this case is that social policy will change not only from above. We have already gone down the path of centralized directives, and it is known what all such repressive measures lead to - to the withdrawal of profits into the shadows, and yachts into foreign bays. This time, the authorities chose a much more pragmatic path - to develop a new taxation mechanism with the help of the entire society, including those on whom the tax will fall. This means that there is hope that the luxury tax will still achieve its goals.

Debit-credit

Deputy Minister of Economic Development S. Voskresensky said that a tax on real estate with an area of ​​more than a thousand square meters could be introduced next year: “The main thing is that the middle class does not fall under the tax. Anyone who owns such a large property certainly does not fall under the definition of the middle class.” At the same time, the head of the Ministry of Finance A. Siluanov did not rule out increasing the transport tax rate on elite sports cars with a capacity of 200–250 horsepower.

On the website www.nalognaroskosh.ru, created with the support of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, everyone can make their own proposals regarding what the new tax should be. In addition, existing materials of public discussion are posted there.

And blogger Dmitry Ternovsky came up with and posted on the Internet an “Income Calculator” - http://kal-kulatordohodov.ru: “With its help, everyone can calculate how much the luxury tax will cost them.” He plans to summarize the results to determine the scope of the tax so that it does not affect the middle class.