The government may allow the regions to introduce sales tax

The government can give regions the right to introduce sales tax. This was announced by the Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov, his words are given by ITAR-TASS .

According to the minister, the maximum bar of such a tax can be set at 3%. According to his calculations, the innovation will be able to replenish the budget for 200 billion rubles. The minister emphasized that the government will still discuss the new tax.

Siluanov also stated that "on past experience, sales tax is concentrated in large regions like Moscow, the Moscow Region and so on."

Meanwhile, according to the Ministry of Finance, the deficiency of the consolidated budget of the Russian regions amounted to 673 billion rubles or 1% of GDP last year. According to Fitch rating agency, it is possible to stop the growth of debt load on the regions only by eliminating the imbalance between expenditure obligations and income of the regions due to "new expenditure powers established by the federal government." According to the agency’s study, this imbalance arose in 2012-2013. In addition, the public debt of the constituent entities of the Federation since the beginning of the year has increased by 16.7 billion rubles (by 1%) and amounts to 1.754 trillion, the Operational Report of the Accounts Chamber on the progress of the federal budget for the first quarter of the year says.