INTRODUCTION OF A WEALTH TAX MIGHT BECOME A REALITY

Discussions on the introduction of a progressive tax on personal income in Russia have been ongoing for a long time, but now, due to the difficult economic situation in the country, a long-standing initiative might become a reality.

According to Sergei Kalashnikov, the deputy head of the economic committee of the Federation Council, the existing flat taxation scale is “wild and exotic” as well as “of a great social injustice”, given the difference in incomes among the population. Kalashnikov’s proposal is that there should be an increase in personal income tax with every million of annual income and for those who receive less than 2/3 of the average income the taxation should be completely abolished.

According to preliminary data, there are plans to raise personal income tax up to 15% for those whose annual income is more than 3 million rubles.

Such a measure will make it possible to replenish the state treasury by 60 billion rubles. However, the implementation of the measure is not so simple. Very often people have several sources of income, which are not easy to calculate in total. If you assign this responsibility to the employer, there is no guarantee that he or she will be able to do it, since not all the employers have information about all sources of income of their employees.

As for the adjustment of the work of the tax authorities in this area, such a measure can lead to the costs almost equivalent to the tax revenues which seems inappropriate.