We raise VAT. For whom?

Despite the record revenues from oil trade, the government is preparing to save the oligarchs at the expense of citizens

In early April, Russian financial markets were covered with a shock wave from new American sanctions. In the current form, sanctions are not yet threatened with the national economy by disaster, but they are already knocking out the soil from under the feet of individual companies. The government for the third week in a row discusses the mechanisms of assistance to large Russian businessmen affected by the actions of the US Treasury.

The losses of Oleg Deripaska and Victor Vekselberg grow in real time. Rumors of bankruptcy and subsequent nationalization of Rusal appeared: deprivation of sales markets can cost an aluminum giant of billions of dollars of revenue and lead to a reduction in thousands of jobs. Renova was faced with a sharp increase in the cost of borrowed capital and the inability to pay debts due to disconnecting from the dollar system. The banking sector, according to the head of Sberbank German Gref, will lose about 10% of the annual profit due to the high volatility of the ruble.

It is still unknown what a rescue circle will be, which the Kremlin will abandon close businessmen. In the near future, the government will create a special department for response to sanctions, which in tandem with a promoted promotion Promsvyazbank will support problem enterprises afloat. The choice of specific support tools is limited only by the imagination of officials: we can talk

• On preferential loans from state banks,

• subsidies from the National Welfare Fund,

• participation in the state order system

• creating internal offshores.

The only nuisance is that a lot of money will be required to set these mechanisms for the flow.

Donald Trump involuntarily rendered a large service to the Russian authorities: US sanctions weakened the ruble, untied it from the cost of energy resources. As a result, oil and gas revenues of the budget in ruble equivalent today are near historical maximums

- The cost of a barrel Brent reaches 4,500 rubles. Due to the specifics of taxation, almost 90% of the increase in oil prices takes. With such a conjuncture, public finances should be in perfect order. Moreover, the volume of liquidity, which at first requested a suction business from the budget, according to Anton Siluanov, is a relatively modest 100 billion rubles. However, as the western pressure increases, the appetites of domestic business can grow in a multiple size. We must not forget that such a commotion in Russian markets provoked only point sanctions that do not directly hurt the tenth of the potential targets of the American authorities.

Even having completed a year without a budget deficit, the Ministry of Finance will not be able to build a full -fledged infrastructure for the protection of Russian companies and banks from external threats. One of the possible solutions may be nationalization and a new redistribution of property: in the atmosphere of the “besieged fortress”, part of insufficiently loyal businessmen risk losing part of their assets in favor of the state. But the main source of assistance to the oligarchs will most likely be the population - the government is already getting its old blanks associated with the reconfiguration of the tax system.

Last week, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev instructed to calculate the consequences of the abolition of a preferential VAT rate (10% instead of basic 18%), which applies to food, medicines and goods for children. It will be possible to save 600 billion rubles on the benefit - the equivalent of the annual revenue of Rusala. After that, the government’s repertoire will remain an increase in personal income tax rate to 15% (about 500 billion rubles), an increase in excise taxes , the introduction of sales tax and raising the retirement age .

If, before the presidential election, discussions about the possible increase in the tax burden on the population were associated with the implementation of the president’s socio-economic instructions, today the priorities of the Russian leadership are formed in a fundamentally different political situation.

Problems of economic growth and the fight against poverty, which in the Kremlin, were just begun to recall after prolonged geopolitical wars are again pushed into a distant box. Compensation for losses for the Forbes list is much more consistent with the interests of self -preservation of the regime.

By the way, the rich who have fallen under the sanctions have been received from the government various tax extensions for several years. The Ministry of Finance promises a “more fair tax burden”, which is understood not to the struggle against inequality, but to a reduction in informal employment.

“It would be incorrect to spread a private business, involving it in political games,” said the head of the RSPP, Alexander Shokhin, RBC. Officials constantly say that in Russia there are no oligarchs, only socially responsible businessmen. There is some meaning in this statement: large business in Russia has not had the same political independence for a long time as the first oligarchs from the 1990s. But the rhetoric of successful entrepreneurs suffering from politics does not become more convincing from this.

Of course, it is not direct responsibility for the country's international isolation of the country. But why should the well -being of the rest of the population be a bet in Russia's confrontation with the Western world? Large owners who have put on their capital due to close ties with the state can rely on budget financing in difficult times. Deripaska was saved in the crisis of 2008, and now the situation is repeated. The number of dollar billionaires in Russia, despite sanctions and economic stagnation, over the past 2 years has grown by 29 people.

That is, there are oligarchs in Russia, and they feel quite comfortable even in such a toxic environment.

The situation is much worse with the finances of ordinary Russians, whose real income has fallen by 11%since 2014. The ruble has depreciated, a list of available consumer goods has been reduced and pension savings were frozen. But there is no talk of any compensation - the forecast for the future promises stagnation and a series of painful reforms. The population, which never received high -ranking officials on personal yachts, has already paid for the actions of the state from its pocket. Now a large business is trying to restore justice at someone else's expense.