Russian Finance Ministry opposes adjusting steel excise tax calculation, no resources to reduce revenues

ALMATY. Jan 30 (Interfax) - The Finance Ministry opposes adjusting the calculation of the excise tax on liquid steel, which is proposed by the Russian Steel Association and supported by the Industry and Trade Ministry.

"We are against adjustments. The funds are already included in the three-year budget, and there are no resources to reduce revenues," Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Sazanov told journalists. The Finance Ministry "cannot afford additional revenue shortfalls at the moment," he said.

Earlier this week, the deputy director of the Metallurgy and Materials Department at the Industry and Trade Ministry, Andrei Savelyev, said that the ministry would insist on adjusting the steel excise tax calculation.

"We will definitely push for this within the government, and I hope we will be supported in the Federal Assembly, regarding the adjustment of the threshold value for the liquid steel excise tax," he said during a meeting at the Federation Council on Tuesday on state support measures for the metallurgy and engineering industries to prevent a crisis in these sectors. "We are not talking about cancellation. But when we introduced the excise tax and set the threshold at 30,000 rubles below which the excise is not paid, we based it on the economic realities of that time."

At the same meeting, Russian Steel President Alexei Sentyurin said that the association had provided calculations indicating that the minimum threshold for a zero steel excise tax should be raised to 54,000 rubles.

At the end of last year, sources told Interfax that metal companies want to raise the price threshold for slabs above which the steel excise tax is applied from the current 30,000 rubles to 60,000 rubles.