Russian Finance Ministry's position on adjusting steel excise duty unchanged, no potential to reduce revenue base - deputy minister

MOSCOW. Feb 28 (Interfax) - The Finance Ministry continues to oppose adjustments to calculating the excise tax on liquid steel which has been proposed by metal companies and supported by the Industry and Trade Ministry.

"It [the ministry's position] has not changed. The three-year budget has been formed, there is no potential to reduce the revenue base, and the budget is already in deficit," Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Sazanov told reporters.

In January, the deputy director of the Industry and Trade Ministry's Metallurgy and Materials Department, Andrei Savelyev, said that the ministry would insist on adjusting the calculation of the steel excise tax.

"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 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," he said.

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.

According to the excise tax calculation formula for vertically integrated steel producers approved at the end of 2022, the excise tax is reduced to zero if the Cslyab indicator (the export price of slabs for a calendar month) multiplied by the average U.S. dollar to ruble exchange rate for the month is less than 30,000 rubles. In 2024, the threshold for the excise tax calculation remained above 30,000 rubles.