The massive scale economic crisis has already made the government double its efforts in solving many problems stockpiled for years. Starting from January 1 2009, orientation of the whole system of taxation in Russia will be shifted towards business.
At yesterday’s 10th conference of the “United Russia” political party, its chief (and Russian Prime-Minister) Vladimir Putin announced that the profit tax rate would be lowered from the current 24 to 20%. Companies won’t have to pay taxes in advance - which means that they will pay them from actual, already received profits. And all those innovations will cost the budget around 500 billion rubles. But at the same time, experts say, this approach will make it possible for companies to maintain current assets and to execute investment plans even in times of the financial crisis.
The order of VAT calculation will be optimized 1 year earlier than expected, and the amount of bonus depreciation will be increased from 10 to 30%. Mr. Putin says that one can’t delay those changes any longer because the real sector needs them now.
Smaller entities will also receive aid from the government. Prime Minister proposed Russia’s local government authorities in regions to lower the profit tax of companies on simplified taxation from 15 to 5%. “This should help them survive the crisis”, - commented Ekaterina Narinyan, head of the international investment department in “Baker Tilly Rusaudit”.
Besides, Vladimir Putin proposed a twofold increase of property-related tax deduction for purchasers of real estate property - to 2 million rubles, which will help them save 260 thousand rubles instead of 130. Prime Minister agreed to apply this measure retrospectively as an exceptional case and to make it effective starting from January 1 2008 instead of 2009. The budget is expected to loose 556 billion rubles as a result: 400 billion lost because of lowering of profit taxes, 13 billion – for taxes on smaller businesses. Bonus amortization increased to 30% will cost 100 billion more, and increased property-related tax deduction for the personal income tax - 43.6 billion rubles. Financing of the whole project of the taxation reform will be done not at the expense of lowing of government spending, but from the monetary reserves of the Reserve Fund of Russia. New amendments to the Internal Revenue Code are already being discussed by the State Duma today (so indeed the government wastes no time – it doesn’t have any time for that, actually).
Russian experts expressed their support for all innovations, saying that the resulting effect will be beneficial for Russian businesses. However, this will be only temporary because in 2010, other changes concerning the uniform social tax are expected, and tax burden will increase again. Stanislav Voskresensky, deputy chief of the Ministry for economic development, hopes for new amendments to the legislation to be ready in April 2009.
Source: “RBC-Daily”
Attention! The fields marked by an asterisk (*) are obligatory for filling
Copyright © 1999—2009 gaap-ifrs.com Editorial is not responsible for the reliability of published promotional information.
Contact us Authors Terms of publication Advertisement
Design by [4rome]
