No point raising key taxes in future - Kudrin
MOSCOW. Dec 29 (Interfax) - There's no point raising the main taxes in future, Deputy Russian Prime Minister Alexei Kudrin, who is also the country's finance minister, said in a Vesti 24 TV interview.
"In the future, I think, there's no point raising the key tax rates," Kudrin said.
"Our tax burden is one of Europe's lowest, and if you remove oil production, one of the lowest levels, even if insurance contributions are raised," Kudrin said.
"Even at that level [including insurance contributions] we'll stay competitive, we won't be in worse state with respect to other countries," even if businesses on some of them are subject to higher tax, he said.
"The Finance Ministry has a whole range of proposals on how to reduce growth in taxes or avoid this in the future. This requires measures related to increasing the retirement age, but not everybody is ready for this," he said.
"It has not yet been decided to increase the retirement age, but there are other ways of optimizing budget spending," Kudrin said. The main reserves for the budget have to be seen "not in raising taxes, not in cutting spending, but in using the same volumes of resources more effectively," he said.