YABLOKO welcomes the reduction of taxes announced at the session of the RF Government on December 5, 2002. However, YABLOKO considers these measures "intermediate and obviously insufficient". Such a statement was made by Deputy Head of the Russian Democratic Party YABLOKO, deputy of the State Duma Igor Artemyev.

"As well as the the 13% flat rate for income tax it is necessary to considerably lower the Unified Social Tax.
This will lead to real legalisation of wages and, consequently, to greater collectability of taxes to the Pension Fund and other funds," said Artemyev, adding:"More radical regression of the rate of the Unified Social Tax rate should be allowed. We propose, for example, to set the Unified Social Tax at 20%, rather than the 30-32% proposed by the government, for annual wages amounting to 50,000 roubles," noted Artemyev.

Artemyev also thinks that the reduction of the tax burden on small businesses (whereby simplified taxation for small businesses will be introduced from January 1, 2003) declared by the government will not be very efficient. "The government is not going to include expenditures on paying the costs of the goods purchased for resale in the list of expenditures considered when calculating the single tax from enterprises working in accordance with the simplified taxation system," explained Artemyev in reference to the government's explanation letter received on December 3 and signed by Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin.

Artemyev also noted that he receives multiple letters from entrepreneurs indicating that this drawback in the new taxation system makes it inefficient and forces them to once again harbour the incomes of their enterprises.

See also:

Tax Reform