Russian tax revenues up 2.6% in Jan-Oct, VAT revenues grow 8.6%
MOSCOW. Nov 22 (Interfax) - Tax revenues for Russia's consolidated budget rose by 2.6% in the first ten months of 2016, the head of the Federal Tax Service (FTS), Mikhail Mishustin said at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin.
"While in the first half of the year we were worried about the figures, the pace of receipts slowed compared to the [same] period of 2015 by around 1.3%, now there has been a turnaround. This [growth of 2.6%] is plus 300 billion rubles," Mishustin said.
Consolidated budget tax revenues grew by 11% to 11.7 trillion rubles in the first ten months of 2015, so revenues amounted to 12 trillion rubles in January-October 2016.
In the first nine months of 2016, consolidated budget tax revenues rose by 1% and tax revenues not including oil and gas taxes increased by 5.4%, Mishustin said at hearings in the State Duma on fiscal and customs policy.
He said the growth was driven by key taxes, foremost the value-added tax (VAT), revenues from which jumped 8.6%.
"This became possible thanks to the operation of the automated system for control over refunds of the value-added tax and integration with the Customs Service," Mishustin said.
Personal income tax revenues increased by 7.6% and profit tax revenues were up by 2.9%.
"But this is including collection of tax on profit from dividends that are paid by major companies, among others. There is a decrease there, since profit was not that high in 2015. But what we're seeing today, we're seeing that if you take it at the rate of 20%, then the pace of growth of profit tax receipts is 7.4%. This recovery is already underway in the regions," Mishustin said.
There was record growth in collection of excises, including on alcohol products, he said. "In the ten months of 2016, overall collection of excises was 1.1 trillion rubles, which was 26% more than the corresponding period of 2015, and if we're talking about strong alcohol it's plus 25%," Mishustin said.
"A large-scale scheme to evade excises was stopped and we are now seeing growth of receipts in certain regions, including tenfold if we're talking about North Ossetia. In the corresponding previous period, there was about 300 million rubles, today it's 3.1 billion rubles. In Kabardino-Balkaria, it's plus 40%. And in principle we're seeing that the dynamic reflects, among other things, the situation of the whitening and legalization of alcohol markets," Mishustin said.