Finance Minister Anton Siluanov urged not to rush to tighten tax regimes for Russians who left the country, as State Duma deputies recently announced. The Ministry of Finance fears that such initiatives will lead to an exodus of tax residents, and then the Russian budget will not receive any money at all instead of the revenues that go into it now. The minister expressed this opinion in a commentary for RBC.
“If we make special taxation procedures, we can create conditions when businesses are not interested in paying to the Russian budget. People who left can become non-residents and will not pay anything at all: they will register a company [abroad], and they will provide services on the territory of the Russian Federation, respectively, there will be no personal income tax, no insurance premiums,” the minister said, commenting on the tax initiative of the deputies .
Anton Siluanov urged not to hurry with such initiatives, since it is important for the tax system to “do no harm”. The minister stressed that the department is considering another option – maintaining existing tax regimes and expanding the types of activities that can be carried out from abroad, while maintaining the tax flow to Russia. The head of the Ministry of Finance noted that he would like taxes to be paid in Russia.
On Monday, December 26, the head of the State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, took the initiative to tighten tax regimes for Russians who left amid the war with Ukraine. He expressed the opinion that tax preferences should be abolished for such Russians and, vice versa, the tax burden should be increased.
Later, Andrei Isaev, deputy head of the United Russia Duma faction, clarified that the tightening of tax regimes should affect self-employed and individual entrepreneurs who left Russia. The idea of the deputies actually forbade the status of self-employed for Russians who left the country, which establishes a preferential tax regime (4-6%). Instead, they will be required to either enter into employment contracts or register as an individual entrepreneur with all the ensuing tax consequences.
The Ministry of Finance was puzzled by the tax issue in relation to citizens who left the country in the summer. Then the department, on the contrary, considered a reduction in the tax rate (personal income tax, 30%) for Russians who formally lost their resident status, but still receive salaries in Russian companies. The department proposed to equalize them with the rest and keep the rate for them at the level of 13% of personal income tax. However, no amendments to the budget in this regard were adopted, at the moment non-residents must pay 30% of personal income tax, residents – 13 or 15% of personal income tax, depending on the amount of income.
How exactly it is planned to calculate the emigrants is still unknown. Now, in order to stop being a tax resident in Russia, you need to live for more than six months in another country, and then independently report on yourself to the tax office. As part of the amendments, this can be done forcibly.
As IT specialists explained to The Insider, you can analyze the data of banks or mobile operators. Our telecom, on purpose or not, itself helps the Federal Tax Service in this: there are more and more special tariffs “for those who have left”, which are offered to subscribers when they are in roaming for a long time. Do not forget about the border control base. If it is stored in a decent electronic form, it is not a problem to identify citizens who left the country more than 6 months ago.