And I want it, and it injects me

The Financial and Budgetary Policy Committee of the Legislative Assembly of the Omsk Region recommended that the regional parliament submit to the State Duma a draft federal law “On Amendments to Part One and Part Two of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation,” developed by the Ministry of Finance of the Omsk Region and the Ministry of State and Legal Development of the Omsk Region. Most likely, the project will not even be considered at the plenary meeting - it will be drawn up according to the appropriate rules and sent to the State Duma on behalf of the regional Legislative Assembly.

The essence of the project is to “fix the corporate income tax on the territory of the constituent entity of the Russian Federation where such organizations actually carry out their production activities.” To do this, it proposes to introduce a new concept for the Tax Code: “a united group of taxpayers - a voluntary union of organizations of the largest taxpayers that are interdependent persons, created for the purpose of determining their total profit for calculating the combined corporate income tax.”
Behind all these boring words lies not the first attempt to implement a simple principle: taxes must be paid where the enterprise operates, and not where its head office is registered. And if this time the initiative is supported in the federal parliament, St. Petersburg will be left without free taxes from Gazprom Neft.
In the spring of 2006, the re-registration of the Sibneft company (it was previously called that) in St. Petersburg caused violent protests in Omsk, where the company was one of the main “donors” of the regional budget, giving it about 60 percent of tax revenues. The regional parliament then accepted an appeal to President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov, demanding to postpone or cancel the re-registration of Sibneft, and local media were interested in why the Omsk oil refinery would continue to smoke in Omsk and pay taxes in St. Petersburg.
Nothing helped - on May 13, 2006, the company changed its legal address and began paying regional taxes (which is the majority of the profit tax - 18.5 percent of profits, the remaining 6.5 percent goes to the federal budget) to the St. Petersburg treasury. After which, St. Petersburg politicians lost one of their main accusations against Moscow, which “robbed the regions” by taking taxes from oil and gas companies operating in Siberia, but registered in the capital. And they became exactly the same target for accusations from politicians from other territories and regions.
But, as they say, money doesn’t smell like gas. Well, the slanderers will accuse Peter of having, in fact, stolen other people’s funds - so the dog barks, and the budget is filled. At the same time, Smolny was able to justify preferences to Gazprom by the fact that the company, they say, gives us so much that it would be a sin not to meet its needs. For example, give her the opportunity to build the notorious Okhta Center, and also get land on Krestovsky Island, Komarovo, Tavrichesky Garden, and so on.
As long as Peter and Gazprom had peace, friendship and chewing gum, everything was good and wonderful. But then difficulties began - for one, for the other. Gazprom refused to throw more money at the stadium, the city refused to finance the Okhta Center for the next three years, Gazpromneft was fined a billion rubles for violating antimonopoly laws and abusing its dominant position. This is where another Omsk initiative appears - I must say, completely reasonable. After all, the principle of dividing taxes into federal and regional components in any federal state exists so that regions have their own economic base associated with the work of enterprises located on their territory. I wonder what the St. Petersburg authorities will say if companies operating in the city re-register, if not in Omsk, then in the Leningrad region and start paying taxes there?
The initiative of his deputies was also supported by the governor of the Omsk region, Leonid Polezhaev: he sent a letter to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin about the need to revise the taxation system for all regional enterprises that are part of federal holdings, including Gazpromneft. Whether this initiative will be supported is unknown (the price of the issue in relation to Gazprom Neft is 15 billion rubles, but if oil prices do not rise, then next year this amount may fall sharply), but if this happens, the options may be different.
Let us note, however, that in this way (having discussed this matter in advance with the Omsk authorities) Gazprom may well make it clear to the St. Petersburg authorities that it will stop paying them taxes if it does not receive the promised benefits. Perhaps understanding this, Smolny begins to maneuver on the issue of the Okhta Center: what is called “I want it, I need it, and my mother didn’t tell me to.”
Thus, as soon as Governor Valentina Matvienko stated that Gazprom remains a partner of St. Petersburg and she really likes the Okhta Center project proposed by him, and “there has been a turn in the mood of St. Petersburg residents towards a positive perception of the construction of the center,” Vladimir Putin spoke at the United Russia congress and called on both governors and natural monopolies to abandon expensive and ineffective projects, conduct an “audit of their expenses” and “shrink.”
After this, people in Smolny began to say that the final agreements with Gazprom on the implementation of a number of joint city projects would be announced at a meeting of the St. Petersburg government, but no “agreements” were voiced there (the meeting took place the day before yesterday). Vice-Governor Mikhail Oseevsky, however, said that “the city will not withdraw from the program for the construction of the Okhta public and business center,” but he expressed it strangely: they say, “we will adjust the target program (on financing construction. - B.V.) , but the city will not withdraw from the project.”
How is this to be understood if the city refused funding for the next three years, and no further participation in the project was envisaged? A discussion of this issue was planned on Tuesday evening at the Zenit - Juventus match, where the head of Gazprom Alexey Miller came, but so far its results are not known...

Boris VISHNEVSKY