It seems that Russia is making some progress in administration of the tax laws, and in the legislation itself.

Refunds of VAT payments have been an area of great fraud, particularly by way of refund claims for non-existent goods, fiddling the amounts on invoices, and ephemeral businesses. Last week an official of the Federal Tax Service told radio station “Echo Moscow” that such fraudulent claims are being reduced by better administration by the Service. Most of the improvement has occured in Moscow where a change of leadership at the beginning of the year has delivered positive results.

The claims of better administration by the Tax Service were supported by the director of the legal department at “ТНК-ВР management”, the deputy chairman of the tax committee at the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, and by officials at the Ministry of Finance.

Also last week, “Vedomosti” ran an article on possible future changes to the tax laws. It quoted a report prepared by the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economic Development, and the Federal Tax Service. In 2010 total tax concessions amounted to 2.48 trillion rubles, or 5.53% of GDP, with “business getting 1.063 trillion in stimulatory tax concessions”.

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“Business Russia”, a high profile lobby group representing companies outside the natural resources sector, has presented (World Bank) data to Group 6 indicating that the Russian 34% “insurance contribution” is much higher than in other countries. It also presented calculations on how to improve the position of the budget while reducing the rate. 

Jeff says that ….

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So far the only document for Group 6 is from the Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy. The document is divided into four sections with recommendations for each of the sections. These are: taxation of natural resources sector to become based on world prices for such resources; increased progressiveness of taxation of income and property; improving the structural composition of the tax system and the share of tax on consumption; better tax policy (in areas such as concessions) and tax administration.   

Jeff says that ….

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