Preferential rate of insurance premiums until the end of 2017 for Russian IT companies that have undergone special accreditation in the Ministry of Communications is 14% / M. Stulov / Vedomosti

At the ongoing Internet Economy forum, Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to consider a proposal to extend benefits on insurance contributions for IT companies, Interfax reports.

As Interfax reports, the president was told at the forum that by 2014, thanks to the benefits, the volume of software sales had grown to 102 billion rubles from 28 billion rubles in 2010. "I agree with you completely, the only question is that this needs to be done somehow without violating WTO rules. We need to think about it," said V. Putin (quoted by Interfax).

Nikolay Nikiforov proposes to extend benefits for IT companies

Technologies / IT business

The preferential rate of insurance premiums until the end of 2017 for Russian IT companies that have undergone special accreditation with the Ministry of Communications is 14%. The standard insurance premium for everyone else is 30%. It was planned that from 2018 it would increase to 21%, in 2019 – to 28%, and from January 1, 2020 – to the standard 30%.

In early October of this year, it became known that the Minister of Communications and Mass Media Nikolay Nikiforov approached Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev with a proposal to extend the term of preferential insurance premiums for IT companies. The Ministry of Communications proposed to extend the 14% tariff until the end of 2023, 21% until the end of 2024, and 29% until 2025.

If the fiscal burden on Russian IT companies increases in 2018, they will begin to lose the competition for workers to global companies, according to the document. And the deterioration in the health of the IT industry, according to Nikiforov, will affect not only the technological development of the country, but also other sectors of the economy.

Nikiforov was supported by the Ministry of Economic Development, but the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Labor were against extending the reduced tariffs. The reason was the deficit in the federal budget, as well as the budgets of the social insurance funds and compulsory medical insurance.

The Ministry of Communications calls the reduced insurance premium rates an effective measure in a message on its website – it has been extended to approximately 34.5% of all IT industry employees. The financial indicators of such companies are growing faster, the department notes.

At the end of 2014, the Ministry of Finance already spoke out against extending preferential tariffs for Russian software developers. The department is against allocating benefits for the payment of insurance premiums not only to IT companies, but to any companies in principle, as Assistant to the Minister of Finance Svetlana Nikitina explained the department's decision last year. This leads to a decrease in the income of off-budget funds and puts companies in unequal conditions, she said.

Putin to Consider IT Benefits