"It's a new decision," Russian Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin told journalists Saturday.
The new system will mean that VAT will be levied, when oil and gas are exported, not in Russia as is the case now but in those countries of the CIS where they are delivered to.
As for amendments to the Tax Legislation, scheduled for 2005, their package has been formed, and is unlikely to change, Kudrin said.
The minister said in the framework of the tax reform "the state made a serious step to reduce loopholes to evade taxes from this year on." "If the tax burden reduces, ever fewer enterprises will try to use such loopholes," Kudrin said. In conditions of tax reduction, part of optimization schemes become unprofitable and cease to exist, explained the minister. "Legalization of the economy increases, we can see it by budget revenue," he added.
In Kudrin's words, the reduction of the maximal rate of the unified social tax scheduled for next year from 35.6% to 26% "will be another revolutionary step" in this direction.
As regards the problem of administrating the VAT, here, "one should first of all rely upon law enforcement bodies," Kudrin said. He recalled a recent discussion about the finance ministry's proposals to introduce special accounts to pay the VAT. Such introduction aiming to reduce possibilities to evade VAT payment could become a burden for bona fide business, said the minister.
"In its time, the business itself in the person of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs suggested the government improve the work of law enforcement bodies (in the tax sphere), and not introduce a special accounts system for everyone," Kudrin recalled.
"We should heed this proposal and improve the work of law enforcement bodies to block criminal schemes of tax evasion," he emphasized.
Kudrin said the Russian government has enough tools to manage the monetary stock, which will make it possible to keep inflation within 3% by 2008.
"The main factor of inflation is the amount of the monetary stock in circulation," Kudrin explained speaking live on Mayak radio.
The minister also said the Russian government at its latest session adopted a decision to restrict the growth of tariffs on services by natural monopolies, which is one of the factors influencing inflation.
The main parameters of the federal budget for 2005 will be submitted by the finance ministry to the government June 5, Kudrin said.
"Now the economic development ministry has submitted a specified forecast of the country's social and economic development (for this and the next three years), and we will need additional time to calculate the revenues and expenditures of the budget," he stressed.
Kudrin said that he applied to the government with a request to give the finance ministry additional time to complete all calculations. Thus, the document will be submitted to the Cabinet on June 5 instead of June 3, Kudrin specified.
Besides, in the minister's words, the finance ministry intends to revise the forecast of federal budget performance for next year on the basis of a corrected forecast of the country's social and economic development, worked out by the economic development and trade ministry.
As reported earlier, Russia's economic development ministry raised its forecast of the GDP growth this year from 6.4% to 6.6%. The estimation of world prices for oil this year was raised from $28.5 per barrel to $29 per barrel.
