Tax nuts: do not touch the rich, to tighten motorists

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The State Duma refused to impose a tax on the rich. At the same time, the budget includes several new fees from motorists at once.

The State Duma rejected in the first reading four bills on the introduction of a progressive scale of income tax in Russia. The bills were prepared by opposition factions - the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the Liberal Democratic Party and "Fair Russia". The documents were considered as priority bills of the factions in accordance with the amendments to the State Duma regulations, previously approved by the lower house of parliament.

4 trillion

According to the bill of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, with a monthly income of less than 400 thousand rubles. it was proposed to keep the tax rate at 13%, with a monthly income of 400 thousand to 1 million rubles - 30%, with a monthly income of over 1 million rubles - it was proposed to increase the tax rate to 50%. “It's not a lot, it's okay. In France 60% tax. In Sweden - 26%, in the USA - 28%. If we adopt our law, the country will receive 4 trillion 750 billion rubles, this will just plug all the holes in the budget,”said one of the authors of the bill, first deputy chairman of the Committee on Economic Policy Nikolai Arefiev (Communist Party of the Russian Federation).

The gap between rich and poor is 40 times

According to the LDPR bill, with an annual income of up to 180 thousand rubles, the tax rate is set at 0%, from 180 thousand to 2.4 million rubles. annual income - the tax rate is 13%, with an annual income of 2.4 million rubles to 100 million rubles - the tax should be 288.6 thousand rubles. + 30%, with an income of 100 million rubles. the annual income tax should be 29 million 568.6 thousand rubles + 70%. “Today 10% of the richest citizens of the Russian Federation are 16 times richer than the poorest. This gap exceeds the maximum allowable values recommended by the UN. If we take into account hidden income, illegal entrepreneurship, corruption extortion, the gap can reach 40 times,”the explanatory note to the bill states.

“Those who are subject to taxation at 70%, there are only 23 thousand of them in Russia, we all know them,” said Sergei Katasonov, a deputy from the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia. According to the calculations of the Liberal Democratic Party, the adoption of the bill would bring 2.05 trillion rubles to the consolidated budget of the Russian Federation.

For social justice

The "Fair Russia" faction has prepared 2 bills on the progressive scale of personal income tax. According to the first bill, authored by the deputy Oleg Nilov, for incomes of up to 5 million rubles per year and incomes in respect of which professional and property tax deductions can be applied, the tax rate remains at the level of 13%, for incomes from 5 million to 50 million rubles per year, the tax rate will increase to 18%, for income from 50 million to 500 million rubles per year, the tax rate will be 23%, for income over 500 million rubles per year - 28%. “The need to equalize the incomes of citizens, reduce the gap in incomes between the highest and the lowest paid categories of working people, the world practice of social justice and the world practice of taxing income of individuals unequivocally speak in favor of introducing a progressive taxation scale,” the explanatory note to the bill says.

The bill of another "spravossa" Valery Gartung provides for the preservation of the rate of 13% for incomes up to 24 million rubles per year, for incomes from 24 million to 100 million rubles per year, a rate of 25% is proposed, from 100 million to 200 million rubles per year - 35 %, for income over 200 million rubles per year - 50%.

The United Russia faction opposed all the bills. As the first deputy head of the faction, Andrei Isaev, emphasized, the differentiation of the personal income tax scale will create queues at the tax office. “Income tax is one of the elements of tax policy. It makes no sense to reform one element without understanding how we are generally trying to build this tax policy. Therefore, I believe in 2018we must discuss all the possibilities, discuss all the pros and cons, including the scale of the progressive tax, but now, in the form in which our colleagues from the opposition factions proposed, we will not support this project, because we understand that it is of special benefit to people will not bring,”the deputy concluded.

From the new year, cars and their maintenance will become more expensive

Alas, this is practically a fait accompli: cars will rise in price from the new year. Everything. In addition, it will become more expensive to maintain them. The main reason for this is that the budget includes several new fees from motorists. And the amount that they will pay additionally is calculated. Moreover, if noisy discussions arose in the media on this occasion, the deputies were not worried about these issues; when considering the draft budget, there were no public disputes or objections.

New Year gifts

So, let's start with the recycling fee, which is paid by manufacturers or importers for each car produced or imported into the country. The minimum levy for a car today is 20,000 rubles, but the real average payment is about 50,000. Theoretically, the funds received, as the name of the levy implies, should be used to dispose of old cars, but we practically do not have such an industry, so the funds go away (impersonal) to the budget.

Since January, the recycling fee has been increased by 15%. As a result, in 2018 the amount of proceeds from the collection will grow by 58.4 billion rubles and will amount to an impressive 223.4 billion, and in 2019 even more: 259.8 billion rubles. And although the government compensates these amounts for the most part to domestic manufacturers (albeit with a delay), the final price for car buyers will still grow. Do not go to the fortune-teller!

But this is only the beginning: as early as next year, the Ministry of Industry and Trade plans to introduce obligations on the complete disposal of products for manufacturers of a number of goods. Including car tires. Naturally, this fee will be included in the price, and immediately, although the country does not have a system for accepting used tires from the population, and enterprises do not have the resources to process them. Is it possible to create a practically new industry from scratch in a year? The question is rhetorical, but the collection may be introduced in a few months. True, the amount has not yet been determined, but we will soon find out.

In the 2018-2020 budget, the Ministry of Finance also laid down an increase in the excise tax on the most powerful cars. Now there is a scale of three categories, and machines with motors from 150 hp are considered powerful. With.; the excise tax for them is 420 rubles per 1 liter. With. It is paid by manufacturers (importers), but it is clear that these amounts are included in any price tag. The Ministry of Finance proposed four new categories: 200-300, 300-400, 400-500 and over 500 horsepower. The amount of excise taxes for them is, respectively, 897, 925, 965 and 1084 rubles. It turns out that the difference in the price of the popular Toyota Land Cruiser 200 SUV with a 4.6 liter (309 hp) engine today and in 2018 - only due to this growth - will amount to 156,000 rubles. And for a sports car with an engine of 500 "horses" the new collection will already be about 0.5 million rubles!

But the Ministry of Finance optimistically calculated that this increase would give the federal budget an opportunity to receive additional income in the amount of 13.9 billion rubles. It's hard to say, because for some buyers, on the contrary, this will become a reason to postpone the purchase.

Immortal tax

However, this is not all: in September, the government approved an increase in excise taxes on gasoline and diesel. If anyone remembers, these excise taxes appeared in 2012 as a step towards the introduction of a fair levy on car owners. After all, the current transport tax does not take into account - we drove by car every day or imprisoned forever in the garage. And it turns out honestly: the more you drive, you pay more, because the road excise tax is paid from each liter of fuel poured into the tank. This practice exists in many countries; not so long ago, they switched to such a system in China. Abolishing, of course, the transport tax.

In 2012, the excise tax was introduced in our country; it increases almost every year and now amounts to a little more than 9 rubles - in each liter (including VAT). We are expecting an increase in excise taxes in 2018, gradually - by 50 kopecks in January and the same amount - from July. As a result, only because of the increase in excise tax, retail fuel will rise in price by 3% - by about 1.2 rubles. At the same time, the Ministry of Finance promises that the additional 60 billion rubles received (this is only in 2018) will go to large infrastructure projects, such as the construction of new highways in Crimea, Kaliningrad, and the Far East.

All points on the i's have been put on the issue of abolishing the transport tax instead of raising the excise taxes. Although at different times we were promised this by the head of the Federation Council, two deputy prime ministers and even the president assured us that “we need to move in this direction,” just a few days ago the State Duma Committee on Budget and Taxes rejected three bills at once and recommended not to consider the topic of abolishing the transport tax … Although the authors of the projects are confident that even a small increase in the fuel excise tax, by only 53 kopecks per liter of gasoline, will fully compensate for the losses of regional budgets, the majority of parliamentarians did not agree with such conclusions.

Apparently, because this idea was not supported by the government: according to the estimates of officials, this could lead to a loss of 146.2 billion rubles from the budget, and there is nothing to compensate for it (new taxes and excise taxes do not count). In general, the State Duma budget committee did not approve the abolition of the transport tax.

Post Scriptum

Recently I saw a large economic study from a completely different field, the historical one. So, it turns out that according to the Charter of the Agricultural Cartel of 1935, "every collective farm … could have one cow for personal use … Keeping livestock in excess of the norms established by the Charter is prohibited." And if a Soviet collective farmer suddenly decided to have a cow, in addition to the usual income tax, he had to pay for each animal on his farm. The rates grew annually. For example, in 1948, in the RSFSR, a tax of 198-530 rubles had to be paid to the state annually for a cow. Is this a lot, a little? For example: in 1950 the average monetary annual income of a collective farmer's family in the Komi Republic was … 374 rubles.

In addition, since the beginning of the 1930s, peasants from their private households had to comply with mandatory delivery rates: the state bought most of the food from them at meager prices. In fact, it was a natural quitrent, the volume of which was regularly increased. Since 1948, for example, a collective farm yard with a cow was obliged to hand over 40-60 kg of meat and 150-300 liters of milk per year. If there was no milk, then the tax was levied on the equivalent of other products - butter, eggs, etc. The state set purchase prices purely symbolic: in 1946, for example, it bought milk at 25 kopecks per liter, and in the store they asked for 5 rubles.

In fact, these norms were completely abolished only in 1988 (!). And it is not at all surprising that the number of the same cows in the USSR increased only on paper; in fact, the peasants were forced to slaughter livestock, cut down fruit trees (each of which was taxed, even if it ceased to bear fruit). And today Russia is forced to buy abroad about a third of the necessary meat and dairy products.

What is it for? Yes, just like that, for some reason I remembered.