Albert Suyargulov: ‘I am waiting for lists of villains who do not pay taxes systematically’

“Unstable behaviour”: where profits go away

The economy of the republic, which suffered from international sanctions later than others due to inertia, worked in a catch-up mode for almost the entire first half of the year. And it looks like the rest of the time will be spent just to return to peak profitability of 2023. After all, income tax, as you know, remains one of the main sources of replenishment of the Tatarstan treasury, which means that fees are under the close attention of the authorities.

It is its unstable “behaviour” that has been troubling Rustam Minnikhanov since the beginning of the year, and this time he spoke out on this issue again.

“Income tax receipts decreased by 5.4% in the first half of the year," the rais of the republic stated, adding that its share in the total amount of tax payments decreased to 34% (it usually reached 40%). The main risk factor was the restrictions imposed in the oil industry, which affected the dynamics of industrial production, Minnikhanov added.

Following him, the head of the Tatarstan Federal Tax Service for the Republic of Tatarstan, Marat Safiullin, clarified that income tax receipts to the budget of the Republic of Tatarstan decreased by 4.7 billion rubles in the first half of the year. If 88 billion rubles were collected in the first half of 2023, then this half-year — only 83.3 billion rubles in income tax, Marat Safiullin noted in his report

Tatneft has reduced its deductions the most since the beginning of the year — by 4 billion rubles. Several times less — Nizhnekamskneftekhim, by 1.5 billion rubles, Kama Trading House — about 1 billion, Kazanorgsintez — by 923 million rubles. In total, 35 large enterprises have “lost” 17 billion rubles since the beginning of the year.

Did optimistic forecasts not come true?

The total reduction in income tax is due to the revision of taxpayers' financial results for 2023, noted Marat Safiullin. Their actual profit turned out to be lower than the forecast, so the companies began to file declarations to reduce the amounts of calculated tax for previous periods. In general, income tax charges have started to fall since the beginning of this year. For example, in the first quarter of 2024, they collapsed by 22.4%. But gradually they began to level off. According to Marat Safiullin, in five months the decline decreased to minus 9.8%, and finally, at the end of the half-year, the business went down by 4.7%.

“From the second quarter, they began to catch up, and by the end of the year, the Federal Tax Service expects to rectify the situation," the head of the Federal Tax Service for Tatarstan encouraged.

But there's another problem. The number of unprofitable enterprises has increased, and their total loss has increased 1.5 times to 25.4 billion rubles.

But banks are thriving — their income tax deductions have increased to 1.7 billion, in mechanical engineering — 0.8 billion, in trade — 0.2 billion.

The head of the Federal Tax Service warned businesses that it is more profitable to work transparently, rather than hide money. According to him, VAT cashing site organisers have recently been exposed. The “commission” of the dealers was 12% of the refunded amount. Criminal cases have been initiated against four conveyor organisers under Article 172 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Illegal banking activities”. During the search, 176 seals with the details of 116 legal entities, 35 security rutokens and 157 bank cards were seized. Payments for goods and services were made on this site using fictitious documents. As a result of the work of law enforcement agencies, the miners agreed to pay more than 100 million rubles to the budget.

“We will continue this work, I think that the amount should increase significantly," promised Marat Safiullin.

Rentier is skimmed off

The picture around personal income tax collections is absolutely rosy. Their amount immediately jumped by 38% to 73.4 billion. There are four factors for this: wage growth by 20%, personal income tax accruals from dividends, expansion of the number of jobs by almost 15 thousand and improvement of the quality of tax administration, the head of the Federal Tax Service did not forget to praise his service. Citizens' own incomes have almost doubled over the year — they will have to pay an additional 4.8 billion rubles. The boom in real estate purchases has led to an additional property tax charge of up to 9.6 billion. In addition, the self-employed transferred 1.45 billion rubles.

The head of the Federal Tax Service forecasts that the transition to a progressive personal income tax scale will not affect the majority of citizens of the republic. According to him, only 2.1% of citizens received an income of 2.4 million rubles a year last year, and only 3.4% of simplified tax payers with revenues of more than 60 million.

In general, an effective model of interaction between the authorities of the republic with the federal centre and businesses allowed not only to maintain the vector of development of the republic's economy, but also to ensure growth in most tax revenues, Safiullin noted. In the first half of the year, 710 billion rubles were collected in Tatarstan, of which 31% remained in the republic.

Pitfalls of the budget 2025

In turn, the head of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Tatarstan, Radik Gayzatullin, foresees new difficulties associated with federal innovations. In his opinion, an increase in standard personal income tax deductions and the transition of taxpayers from the general system to a simplified one will have a negative impact on the republic's budget. In addition, the level of co-financing of federal programmes and national projects will change. The minister forecasts that there will be a decrease in federal co-financing from 60% to 44% for state programmes and from 81% to 57% for national projects by 2027.

Summing up, the rais of Tatarstan urged not to be fooled by the results.

“Although we've earned 240 billion rubles, but we know what inflation is in the country, what is the real value of money in the country. There should be growth," Minnikhanov said, after which he returned to the problem of tax arrears.

The pass went over to the prosecutor of Tatarstan when Minnikhanov asked aloud how it could be that there was a debt of 3 billion rubles in personal income tax, and why debts to the budget were growing.

5 billion rubles given voluntarily

“They recovered almost 5 billion — they voluntarily gave it after conversations," said Prosecutor of the Republic of Tatarstan Albert Suyargulov. “But the rate of decline is not quite active — we are floating in the same range. We need to figure it out — do we force some to pay, and then others appear? Do we have systematic defaulters? I am waiting for you to list the villains who do not pay taxes systematically. If new defaulters appear, we need to understand why," he addressed the Federal Tax Service of the Republic of Tatarstan.

At the same time, Suyargulov is determined to fight the debts of bankrupt enterprises. Gemont has the largest debt — 1 billion rubles, Kazan Synthetic Rubber Plant (KZSK) — almost 600 million rubles, Arslan and Kit construction companies — about 300 million.

“What about bankruptcy managers? What are they doing there, do they have the opportunity to repay the debt? But, most importantly, we need to understand whether we have the opportunity to bring the owners of these businesses to subsidiary responsibility. There is a lot of work, not so many positive results. We're just keeping afloat. I would like to reduce it several times," said the Prosecutor of the Republic of Tatarstan.

Should we expect a sequel?