"Rapid growth of e-commerce market has its own problematic issues such as regulatory procedures. It is not easy to keep pace with the high rates of its growth and in light of this Russian and foreign participants of [electronic] commerce are often not in the same conditions… We assume that all the participants of the market should be put in equal conditions. It is about both Russian [companies] and our foreign partners," Putin said at the meeting dedicated to the development of e-commerce.
He added that it was necessary to ensure that Russia would have its own strong and prestigious portals that could be used for e-commerce and would allow to promote Russia's goods not only in the country, but also abroad.
In July, Federal Tax Service of Russia said that it was in talks with different government agencies on the possibility to introduce value-added tax for foreign companies, which were involved in sale of goods to the Russians via Internet. The proposal was made in order to equalize the conditions for operations of foreign and Russian companies in the sphere. According to the Russian Finance Ministry, the tax could be introduced starting from 2018-2019.
