ALEXANDER DERYUGIN: "THE REGIONS' REVENUES WILL BE FINE DESPITE THE REDUCTION IN PAYMENTS FROM OFFSHORE OWNERS."

Alexander Deryugin, Researcher of the Budget Policy Department of the Gaidar Institute, discussed the reduction of income tax payments to regional budgets by the owners of the offshore companies in the author’s column for ”Davydov. Index.”

"Such a reduction in payments by offshore companies is not sensitive for the regions, no harm will be done to anyone. It is a small proportion of the revenues of regional budgets with their aggregate budget equaling approximately to Rb 20 trillion. Just under a billion missing means that the total amount has decreased by less than a thousandth, and this is even less than 0.1%.

I think that this will be offset by inflation, which is now high. Thus, no one will simply see the difference. The PIT has gone up, the total mass of income has increased, and if any offshore company has not paid or paid less than previously, this reduction in incomes will be overcompensated due to inflationary growth.

It is difficult to more or less accurately predict due to inflationary growth because it is also affected by a geopolitical factor. However, if nothing extraordinary happens in this respect, the inflation factor will prevail. It is high all over the world (even in the U.S. it reaches 8% only according to official data, which hasn't happened for about forty years), not only in Russia.

Obviously, we decided to raise the key rate (indeed, it is not only us, the U.S. FRS intends to do the same). However, these measures will not stop inflation. Especially since we are still observing a breakdown in the supply chain of goods around the world, which means that even refusing the policy of raising rates will not help. Finally, all prices go up due to high inflation as well as regional incomes. It does not seem that one can expect that inflation will end anytime soon.

The main issue right now is that the economic growth remains weak. It is true that we use the 2020 levels, but the economy is growing insignificantly worldwide. The PIT is growing at this stage meaning that regional revenues will be fine despite lower payments by offshore owners."