Federation Council passes law to raise gas tax in 2016
MOSCOW. Nov 25 (Interfax) - The Federation Council the upper house of Russia's parliament, has approved a law on raising the mineral extraction tax (MET) for gas in 2016.
The law adjusts the procedure for calculating the basis value per unit of oil equivalent in the formula for calculating the MET rate for gas and gas condensate. The formula will incorporate a supplemental coefficient which reflects the export yield of the gas produced. That coefficient will be applied in 2016.
This one-off adjustment will increase the unit of oil equivalent 36.7% and will apply only to Gazprom .
The adjustment, reports have said, will boost budget revenue by about 101.6 billion rubles, but Gazprom has said it might cost the company 120 billion rubles. "We have done calculations on the Economic Development Ministry's updated forecasts and, according to our data, the additional tax burden will total about 120 billion rubles. This is 20 billion rubles more than was agreed. In light of this, we have appealed to the government, to Prime Minister [Dmitry] Medvedev about the need to bring the coefficients in line so that the burden amounts to 100 billion rubles," the deputy head of the company's tax department, Nadia Ziatdinova said at a meeting of the Duma budget and taxes committee at the beginning of November.
