Komsomolskaya pravd: "Vladimir Putin: We must help people to pay taxes, not to victimise them"
On Wednesday, the government discussed ways to augment the budget without capsizing business.
At a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin discussed with his ministers the eternal question – to raise taxes or not to raise taxes. The quandary becomes especially acute in the wake of the crisis: business has already been hard hit, but meanwhile, the budget faces a looming deficit.
"We must act with extreme caution in the tax sphere, analysing our every step," Mr Putin warned his ministers. "We must help honest taxpayers pay taxes properly and on time, without finding fault and victimising them for minor errors. Yet there must be order."
The most painful issue for businesses is the replacement of the unified social tax by insurance contributions, resulting in a subsequent increase in the tax burden by 8%. The introduction of this measure was postponed until 2011 due to the crisis and will be palpable for businesses, but there is no other way for the Pension Fund to make ends meet.
"Taxes must rise gradually in 2011," Mr Putin warned. "Besides, we have innovative companies for which even a slight increase in taxes may become critical. We are ready to keep the rate of the unified social tax intact for them, at its current level of 14% [against the 26% rate applied to all others – Ed.]."
The Prime Minister also proposed expanding the list of sectors and companies entitled to benefits.
"The companies introducing new energy efficient equipment will be exempted from assets tax. All this will allow businesses, especially those which actively introduce modern equipment, to release resources for development," Mr Putin said in conclusion.
Nigina Beroyeva
