‘There’s no need to embellish the situation, we should see in advance where we can have failures’

“The situation will get worse”

“We started the year very well, but now it is necessary to quickly readjust,” Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov characterised the situation with Tatarstan’s budget replenishment at a republican meeting of financial, treasury and tax agencies of Tatarstan.

So in the first quarter of 2022, the budget has received 93,2 billion rubles, of which 85 billion rubles are the region’s own incomes. A total of 317 billion rubles have been collected in Tatarstan, most of this sum went to the federal budget.

“The dynamics of receipts are positive, but we don’t have the right to calm down. The situation will get worse, and we must be ready for this. The economy and our enterprises are experiencing an unprecedented pressure as a result of sanctions, logistical supply chains of products and components need to be rebuilt, import substitution needs to be organised. This isn’t done in a day, it is a very serious, costly task. Separate support measures for producers are necessary too,” said Rustam Minnikhanov.

According to the Tatarstan Finance Ministry’s calculations, backbone enterprises’ income is expected to fall to 21 billion rubles compared to last year’s numbers, of which 19 billion come from industrial and trade enterprises. Nowadays the federal list includes 59 backbone organisations of Tatarstan, which account for a third of the republic’s economy, about 140,000 people work there.

Minnikhanov stressed that today it is important to provide their uninterrupted operation. Related ministries and municipalities should elaborate a plan of actions with every enterprise — depending on possible risks — and provide strict financial discipline. For this, he ordered to weekly hold commissions with supervised enterprises that are having difficulties and reducing payments to the budget, help producers to create cooperation links and use support measures, including to prepare such offers at federal level. The financial arm of the government must keep this issue under control.

Tax debt has risen by 15%

No matter the circumstances, the implementation of national projects won’t scrub, promised the head of the republic. This year, 29,4 billion rubles will be allocated for these purposes, more than 10 billion here are from the republican budget.

According to Minnikhanov, the work with the tax debt is an important reserve. In the first quarter, it exceeded 10,4 billion rubles rising by 15% compared to the same period last year. The sectors overseen by the Ministry of Construction of Tatarstan (519 million), Ministry of Industry and Trade (377 million) and Ministry of Transport (162 million) are leaders in overdue tax payments. The Tatarstan president urged ministers and local authorities to join the topic by working through balance commissions.

“I demand to keep this issue under special control,” said Rustam Minnikhanov.

Petrochemical enterprises are leaders in tax payment

Tax collection in Tatarstan is at a good level, reported head of the Tatarstan office of the Federal Tax Service Marat Safiullin. So during the first quarter this year, tax payments have increased 1,5 times compared to the same period last year, insurance premiums have by 18%.

“High financial indicators of companies last year, growth of revenue, favourable oil prices and a higher salary became key growth factors. Quality tax administration became another important factor, which is confirmed by the high rating among Russia’s tax services,” claimed Safiullin.

The petrochemical complex became a leader in tax payment. Mineral tax provided the budget with the biggest profit — 196,7 billion rubles, which is 1,9 times more than during the first quarter of 2021. Income tax collection has increased by 36%, personal income tax has by 24%. At the same time, refund of money in property and social payouts to the population has grown 1,5 times.

The head of the Federal Tax Service noted that the terms of inspection of declarations reduced as much as possible, today it takes as many as 15 days, more than 140,000 applications of citizens have already been inspected.

At the same time, according to Safiullin, sanctions can cause a number of negative factors that will influence personal income tax collection. It is a layoff of staff and a shorter working week, a fall in rewards and dividends, it isn’t ruled out the grey labour market will grow.

By the end of the campaign, which will end in a week, the expected amount will be 1,5 billion rubles.

“Our analytical instruments allow tracking down tax dodgers”

The head of the Tatarstan office of the Federal Tax Service said that the number of Tatarstan taxpayers’ complaints had reduced by 7% during this period compared to the same period in 2021, while the amount of lawsuits with businesses had by 18%. Decisions in 85% of payments claimed in the court were made in favour of the budget.

At the same time, as a result of tax inspections of the Investigative Committee, there have been launched 16 criminal cases for more than 2 billion rubles, of which 914 million have already been transferred to the budget.

Also, the tough economic situation is affecting both businesses and citizens. Taxpayers’ debts have increased by 1,4 billion rubles, he noted.

“We can’t permit some especially enterprising taxpayers to start dodging tax payment amid the pressure of sanctions. Our analytical instruments allow tracking them down and provide the inevitability of punishment for illegal actions... I would like to note that thanks to the fruitful work with the task force, it became possible to change our citizens’ mentality. As a consequence, the number of debtors among physical people reduces quantitatively — by 200,000 people,” noted Safiullin.

4,5 billion rubles of overdue tax payment

Even though payments to Tatarstan’s budget have increased by 30%, overdue payments have totalled 4,5 billion rubles, said Finance Minister of the republic Radik Gayzatullin. It is 792 million rubles more than during the same period last year. The debt in 32 municipalities has increased by 886 million rubles except for bankrupts and closed enterprises. Bulgarpivo whose debt has risen by a third in the last two months and reached 92,2 million rubles was called among big debtors.

Internal state financial control detected violation of legislation when using state and municipal property for 14,2 million rubles, ineffective use of public money — 33 million rubles.

Gayzatyllin informed that Tatarstan’s public debt had been 98,1 billion rubles, including 86,7 billion rubles of debt in federal loans, 11,4 billion rubles — in state guarantees.

The republic received the first tranche of a public loan equal to 731 million rubles of a total of 10,4 billion rubles to implement infrastructural projects.

“To provide a balance of our budgets, we should jointly think on saving public expenditure and optimise measures,” the finance minister presented his recipe.

“Without embellishment”

Summing up, Rustam Minnikhanov expressed his concern about some enterprises that allowed a fall in income tax at about 2 billion rubles. He stressed that it was necessary to take all the measures that will help support the companies.

Saving jobs is another important task. Today 5,700 people are partly employed or staying idle, this number can double soon. The Tatarstan president order to keep the situation in the labour market under control, support enterprises, exclude salaries given in an envelope.

He gave the municipalities a task too — to pay attention to land tax and property tax collection. 22 districts have decreased their numbers in land tax collection, while the debt of property tax is 486 million rubles. The biggest overdue payment in the latter is in Kazan, Zelenodolsk, Laishevo, Aktanysh, Chistopol Districts.

“It is necessary to look for new markets, new partners, possibilities of import substitutions. It is daily work managed manually. The task force must work quickly. There is no need to embellish the situation, we should see in advance where we can have failures,” the head of the republic concluded.