Earlier, the President congratulated current staff and veterans of the tax authorities on their professional day.
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President of` Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Yegorov, let’s start with the main issue – tax collection for the first ten months.
Head of Federal Taxation Service Daniil Yegorov: Mr President, we collected 27.4 trillion rubles in the first ten months. This is 18 percent more than last year. It is a 15 percent increase for the regional and consolidated budgets and a 20 percent increase for the federal budget. So, in principle we are moving ahead at a good pace.
We hope to maintain this pace and cross the 30 trillion-ruble mark by the end of the year – our consolidated budget will reach 33 trillion rubles. We estimate it will be about 33.3. I am referring to the consolidated budget.
Naturally, our oil and gas revenues are doing very well. But I should also note that income tax revenue is also showing a very steady dynamic. The increase is 16 percent, considering that a 15 percent tax rate for high earners will give us approximately 140 billion over the year. This will be used to help children with orphan diseases.
Vladimir Putin: The Circle of Kindness.
Daniil Yegorov: Exactly. This is administered by the Circle of Kindness. This is about revenue.
We were appointed to be a platform for support measures for our mobilised citizens. What have we done? We owe many thanks to our colleagues at the Defence Ministry. They gave us all the information we needed very quickly. We processed this information with our colleagues and authorised automatic deferral of tax payments or tax returns for nine months after being demobilised. We suspended all inspections and collections in all forms. The measures you have suggested and the instructions you have gave us were implemented automatically through a Government resolution. This week, we will be joined by the Pension Fund, the Social Insurance Fund and the banking system to proactively provide these services to our mobilised citizens.
Vladimir Putin: Only five days to transfer business management by proxy? Is this enough? Not too short a period?
Daniil Yegorov: This is a period for transferring the documents to us and for us to register them. Judging at least by what we usually see, this is enough. Plus, we now have the opportunity to do it remotely. This year we launched an online service for registering a business. Now it is possible to register a business, open a company and become a self-employed entrepreneur in one day, without even coming to us – automatically, remotely.
Vladimir Putin: This also applies to transfer of business management, right?
Daniil Yegorov: Yes. All this can be done remotely, automatically. We receive the information in our system and can immediately transfer it to a designated person.
Third. Regarding what we have done this year in addition to registration, we have seriously revised the tax deduction system for our citizens, when they receive deductions from their income taxes. We have reduced the time for receiving deductions from four months to 12 days. People have received over 450 billion rubles, in total, in literally 12 days.
We have done the same with VAT. Now companies are getting about a trillion rubles on their operating accounts in a month as compared to four months before. This is how much we have changed our procedures. We are reducing the amount of communication and any, let me put it this way, requesting of information from taxpayers so that we do not bother them without a reason. We also reduced our inquiries to taxpayers by 27 percent this year to avoid distracting them from their day-to-day activities.
Our most important gain is our project to implement an automated simplified taxation system. It is running smoothly, testing is proceeding without any hitches, and we are optimistic about entering next year with it.
Vladimir Putin: What about the VAT refund? Can you describe it one more time.
Daniil Yegorov: As regards VAT refund, this quarter it is about one trillion, over one trillion. This is what companies have submitted for refund. This quarter, we reached 83 percent – we refunded them at a rate of 83 percent in one month. This is from value added tax. Of course, such figures were unheard of before. This is possible because of our new automated system. We can see all transparent interaction chains, and there are no problems.
We have a separate area, where we can give companies tax payment deferrals for this year. This started with COVID. We have this system…
Vladimir Putin: 600 billion?
Daniil Yegorov: Yes, Mr President, 600 billion rubles.
Vladimir Putin: This is a handsome sum.
Daniil Yegorov: Yes, this is a serious amount. But we understand who we are giving it to, and we understand how companies will repay it, so everything is under control here, everything is okay. And that allows companies to continue operating. This is probably even more important.
Vladimir Putin: Absolutely.
All right. Thank you.
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