Tax reform: Once again and all together

Rumors about the completion of tax reform, published in December Mikhail Kasyanov, are most likely exaggerated.

“The decrease in the unified social tax (UST) is the most significant measure in tax reform,” said Arkady Dvorkovich, deputy head of the Ministry of Economic Development, speaking on January 21 on a “round table” on “how Russian corporations pay taxes”. The decrease in UST is more important than reducing VAT and income tax, the official believes, as it will help in the legalization of business. According to Dvorkovich, many sectors of the economy pay less than half of what they should pay by UST, and it is difficult to control them, so the tax must be reduced.

Dvorkovich also noted that the UST reduction mechanism has not yet been developed. The basic version approved by the government provides for a reduction in tax rate to 26% while maintaining regression and without transferring insurance payments to employees. Dvorkovich offers to compensate for the budget losses from reducing the ECH due to an increase in taxes on the raw material sector.

The tax system in Russia was born from scratch in the early nineties: in the USSR it was approximately limited to the tax on childlessness. Moreover, with all the liberality of the reforms of the nineties, the system was built as power and repressive: there was no tax collection system, there was no real money, the tax authorities simply shot at every step. As for the systems, the one that focus on VAT was chosen, because indirect taxes are easier to collect. By the end of the 20th century, the tax system in Russia was lined up as a power, well-armed (tax police) and corruption-intensive, and at first large enterprises, but not the taxpayer citizens became its object.

In the nineties scheme with an emphasis on indirect taxes, it was complicated, since the government constantly worked on the problem of stabilizing the national currency and the problem of filling the budget and invented all new taxes and fees.

By the end of the nineties in the expert community that understands the taxes, the knowledgeable theses became generally recognized: a larger percentage of taxes in the relationship to the volume of the economy cannot be collected, and the tax system must be simplified as much as possible so that the state could cope with the system. The corresponding reformist package was prepared in the IEPP and the Gref Center. These sound thoughts need, however, to qualify from the point of view of the political position that is behind them. It is not here - these are technical remarks that are not directly related to goals for the country and the economy: for example, to legalize businesses and income of citizens.

Since 2000, the following was made: a flat income tax scale (13%) was introduced, income tax was reduced, but the investment benefit (which gave an effective increase in tax rate), the road collection (and a cloud of small taxes and fees) was abolished, and special legislation on small business taxation has been introduced. From this year, sales tax has also been canceled, and the VAT rate is reduced by 2%. Separately, the legislation in terms of rental taxes has been greatly changed and simplified, which increased budget revenues. There is a process for some simplification of tax reporting, etc. All this can be attributed to the topic of microscopic improvements with good effectiveness in certain areas (retail chains are probably satisfied with the abolition of sales tax, and the budget - an increase in the collection of petrodollars) and minimal effects for the economy as a whole. In fact, tax rates were the object of reforms, that is, abstractions that are not related to life. In the spirit of Russian politics in recent years, in which the main thesis of “Double GDP” cannot be seriously understood.

In the light of such a background, the statement of Arkady Dvorkovich, at least, contains a hint of a goal - legalization of businesses. Moreover, the deputy minister is unconditionally right in the fact that the formal point of the application of the legalization policy should be precisely the UST as the most difficult and the most incomprehensible. Another thing is that in addition to reducing the tax rate for this, a policy itself should be carried out: stimulating the legalization and growth of salaries, guarantees of the unconditional safety of the legalized business (struggle against administrative pressure on entrepreneurs and citizens), etc.

If we set the goal of legalizing businesses, then you need to focus and concentrate the tax system on those taxes that it is easier to collect and control it (and it is easier to report and be clean before the law) and wage a real war against mass and non -system extortion by the state.

In this regard, it is not clear what logic to put the cancellation of sales tax and a reduction in VAT. Easily picked up (where bribery is less) taxes could even be increased in exchange for a radical reduction or cancellation of direct taxes. You can somehow understand the reverse logic, but not one and the other at the same time. But certainly it is impossible to understand the idea that a simple decrease in any tax rates can take at least some effect. Here you are not there - in the states, alphabetical effects take place, because everything is taxpayers there, and we have legal participation of citizens and businesses in the tax system - an unresolved task.

And it is solved only politically, but not formally technical.