23 May 2011 11:34

Dvorkovich not supportive of FAS suggestion to lower gasoline excises

MOSCOW. May 23 (Interfax) - Russian presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich has said he does not support the proposal by the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) that gasoline excises be lowered if oil prices top $90 per barrel.

"It is more logical, I think, and needed to adjust the natural resource extraction tax (NRET) formula and not reduce excises. Partly because excises go to regional budgets and the NRET completely to the federal budget," Dvorkovich told reporters on Monday in comments on the FAS proposal.

"We don't need to centralize tax collections more, we need to decentralize them more," he said. This issue is a subject of ongoing discussion and no final decision has yet been made, he said.