10 June 2004 08:52
TAX COLLECTIONS CONCERN FINANCE MINISTRY - KUDRIN
Some tax targets were over-met, Kudrin noted. "We over-fulfilled
the plan, but the plan was determined on other economic growth
MOSCOW. June 10 (Interfax) - The Russian Finance Ministry is concerned about how a number of taxes are being
collected, mostly VAT, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said at the Thursday government meeting that addressed the results
of first-quarter budget implementation.
"Budget revenues were calculated on lower GDP growth, lower oil
prices and lower industrial growth (for 2004)," he said. The tax
parameters," he said.
collection level does not correspond with the level of Russia's economic growth, he said.
VAT reimbursement to exporters increased, Kudrin noted, but he express concern over continued evasion through
fly-by-night companies.
He admitted that the problem of transfer pricing at large companies remains to be resolved. In 2002-2003, tax
revenues from vertically integrated companies were down 80-100 billion rubles as a result of transfer pricing, he
said.
"This possibility has been eliminated, so we expect funds to flow into the budgets of the [Russian]
Federation's constituent regions," Kudrin said.
"The battle against transfer pricing sued to avoid taxes is a priority that could be won by improving tax law
and tax administration," he said, adding his hopes that serious movement on this will be made this year.
Kudrin also said there has to be more control over revenues from rented federal property. He noted that some of that
property not subject to taxes is used by state structures to rent to commercial organizations.
"At the end of the year, we will analyze the property base that could provide taxes," Kudrin said.
By way of example, he offered the Russian Academy of Sciences, which, he said, does not itself know how much of its
premises has gone to commercial structures.
Kudrin noted that in light of the introduction of taxation for property belonging to the federal government, by the
end of this year "we will know how much of our property is used not for science, but for other aims." "We
still have a lot of such zones," he added.
The budget revenue target was 24.5% met in the first quarter for the federal budget and 20% for constituent region
budgets, Kudrin said. "The revenue plan was over-met by 77.9 billion rubles thanks to good prices for energy
resources, GDP growth and clearer tax structure," he said.
Dollar exchange rate changes led the budget to miss out on 35 billion rubles, as a result of which the final volume
of over-target revenue was upwards of 42 billion rubles.
Kudrin said first-quarter revenues came to 688 billion rubles, or 19.7% of GDP, cash spending to 533 billion rubles
(15.8% of GDP).
"Counting the reduction of VAT, the transfer of 1% of profit tax to the [constituent regions] and transferring
there part of the excises on motor fuel, the end-result revenues were less than planned," Kudrin said.
Russia was running a budget surplus of 3.8% of GDP at the end of the first quarter. The stabilization fund stood at
198 billion rubles on June 1.
The stabilization fund increased from starting size of 106 billion rubles over the quarter - up 16.1 billion rubles
in January, 20.5 billion rubles in February and 28 billion rubles in March. The increase was 27 billion rubles in
April.
[Interfax] |
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