Can we live without oil?

Income tax brought more to the treasury than mineral extraction tax

The country survived last year not so much due to favorable foreign economic conditions and mineral extraction tax deductions, but rather due to the active growth of the Russian economy. According to the Federal Tax Service, published on Wednesday on the official website of the department, revenues from all taxes and fees last year increased compared to the previous year. The income tax collection increased the most.

Although the trend of confident growth in tax collection has been observed for the third year in a row, experts have only now allowed themselves to conclude that the budget has fully recovered from the reduction of the main budget-forming taxes carried out back in 2001 - on profit and added value.

Despite the fact that the so-called tax collection plans were canceled two years ago, tax authorities regularly maintain their internal statistics. Over the entire last year, the tax service collected 6 trillion 763 billion rubles into the consolidated budget and extra-budgetary funds. taxes, which is a quarter higher than in 2005. Moreover, the collection rate, paradoxically, is growing faster not in taxes, but in terms of contributions to extra-budgetary funds.

The leader in collection, as expected, was the income tax. Its revenues, against the backdrop of high investment activity last year, increased by almost 40% and totaled about 1.7 trillion rubles. Of this money, the federal budget received 510 billion; the regions received 1.1 trillion rubles. Some regions, for their part, worked at an even faster pace with income taxes. Moscow fiscal officials, for example, showed an 80 percent increase in collections for this tax in the first half of the year. As the tax authorities themselves assure, such an impressive result was achieved by optimizing the financial and economic activities of organizations. It is possible that the main incentive for enterprises in Moscow and other dynamically developing regions not to hide real profits was the desire to enter the IPO market.

Economic growth in general and an increase in real incomes of the population apparently explain the 30 percent increase in personal income tax (PIT) collections. All collected 929 billion rubles. of this tax went to the regional budgets.

Revenues from the mineral extraction tax (MET) increased by 28% in 2006, with the vast majority of these revenues coming from MET collections on oil, which increased by almost a third. Collections for the Unified Social Tax (UST) increased not so significantly, by 18%, which is not surprising given the various “gray” salary schemes practiced by many enterprises.

Compared to other taxes, value added tax (VAT) collections showed a very insignificant increase at first glance. Last year we managed to collect VAT only 4% more than in 2005. However, in fact, it is not entirely correct to compare the absolute figures of VAT collections for 2006 and 2005. The fact is that the high revenues of 2005 were explained by the so-called “YUKOS effect”. On the other hand, last year it was VAT that underwent the greatest transformations: advances were exempted from VAT, the procedure for deducting capital investments was changed, which objectively reduced budget revenues.

There was no failure in excise tax collections, which were also predicted to have problems due to changes in the collection procedure. Revenues from the consolidated group of excise taxes increased by 16% compared to 2005, and excise tax collections on tobacco increased most significantly.

Irina SKLYAROVA