A week and a half ago, the Russian budget for 2001 was approved. Now it's time to talk about how it will be stolen. "Power" offers a brief overview of the most common "relatively honest" ways of taking money from the state.
Let us immediately make a reservation that we will understand the term “budget” here in a non-scientific sense. Namely, like all state property and property of local governments. To understand where state property flows, let’s consider three aspects of the budget: its replenishment, spending and conservation.
Replenishment
The vast majority of citizens underpay taxes to the state without even thinking about it. For example, if a citizen has a privatized apartment, the state expects him to pay tax on his real estate by April 1. On average, this tax (for an average two-room apartment) is about 15 rubles per year. However, a citizen will most likely never even know about the existence of such a tax. After all, the basis for charging this amount from him is a certificate from the BTI, which the tax office itself must request and pay 150 rubles for it. It is clear that the taxpayer can rest easy.
Entrepreneurs sleep much less peacefully as they develop a non-payment scheme for each of the numerous taxes. We will consider these schemes, immediately making the reservation that outright crime, such as the production of “unaccounted for” products and the purchase of “a meter of the state border” when no taxes are paid, will remain behind the scenes.
Import
About 90% of goods imported into the country are passed through documents that underestimate either the quantity of goods or their quality. For example, high-quality goods are imported into Russia under the guise of broken tiles, erasers (worth tens of millions of dollars), expensive wool is listed on paper as technical synthetics, etc. Six computers are passed off in documents as one, which (these are, supposedly, the conditions for the configuration and supplies) is packaged in parts into six boxes. Customs clearance is estimated at 50% of the cost of goods sold.
Before the introduction of excise stamps and other deposit barriers, customs handling of alcoholic beverages was generally extremely unpretentious. For example, a truck with vodka entered the country. After border control, she went to the customs clearance area. But on the way, the driver suddenly urgently needed a snack. Or according to need. He came out full and/or happy - there was no truck. The driver wrote a statement to the police, and meanwhile the truck was unloaded in a nearby nook. The police soon found her, but without the taxable cargo.
Now this scheme does not work: before bringing alcohol into the country, you need to purchase an excise stamp for each milliliter, deliver these stamps to the manufacturing plant, where they will be stuck on bottles sent to Russia, then deposit 100% of the duty on what is planned for import in the customs accounts amount of alcohol, and also indicate in advance the exact address of the customs terminal that will carry out customs clearance of the cargo.
When importing cars, a different scheme was in effect. Since citizens who had lived abroad for the last three years were allowed to import a car duty-free, entrepreneurs were actively “working with documents,” and the number of citizens who missed their homeland after a three-year absence became more and more numerous.
This loophole was recently closed, but for some reason imported cars in Russia have not risen in price at all. Importers of used cars began to enjoy another concession - a significantly reduced duty on cars three or more years old. And very mysterious things began to happen with new cars. For example, our importers buy new cars from warehouses in Finland at some prohibitively low prices (Saab 9-5 - for $17 thousand, Nissan Primera - for $9-12 thousand). From such “customs values” (the term of the State Customs Committee) duties are calculated and paid. So the work with documents continues.
Export
According to Russian laws, raw materials exported from the country are subject to duty, and for finished products, according to international standards, the state is obliged to return to the exporter in full the value added tax that was imposed on the goods at all stages of production in the country. Entrepreneurs deal with raw materials simply: “raw” sheet aluminum, for example, is easily converted into a finished product called a “collapsible aluminum hangar” by drilling four holes in each sheet along the edges. Instead of crude oil (which, by the way, contains water), you can export, say, a “product” with the duty-free name “water-oil mixture”. There is a well-known story when, at the dawn of perestroika, a huge batch of titanium shovels was taken out of the country. After crossing the border, the cuttings were disposed of and the raw material was delivered to the client in the best possible condition.
As for VAT, of course, the state never thought of returning it, so entrepreneurs developed a compensation mechanism. An exporting company merges into a holding with a partner who must pay VAT to the state for products for the domestic market. Intercompany netting frees the state from having to pay the exporter. But it also deprives the exporter of income from the partner. At the same time, however, about 10% of the total winnings goes to costs: you have to support those who organize all this.
Fictitious export
This method is a creative development of the titanium shovel theme and is becoming increasingly popular. In order to avoid paying VAT within the country, entrepreneurs begin to export some fantastic things. An ordinary cabinet, for example, is equipped with a switch. After which the product is declared as an exclusive household item that people are willing to buy abroad for a million dollars. Or a “documentary” about the exciting life of the Moscow metro is shot on an ordinary videotape, which is then allegedly sold to curious foreigners for several hundred thousand dollars.
The scale of fictitious exports is such that about six months ago, an interdepartmental center was created under the Ministry of Internal Affairs to combat the legalization of illegal income. However, the authorities are clearly aware of their powerlessness - there is no legal mechanism to suppress such activities. And therefore, the interdepartmental center is still collecting information in order to someday develop amendments to the legislation on its basis. According to some information, in order not to get into its database, you need to pay $50-100 thousand.
Income tax and VAT
Entrepreneurs, deprived of communication with customs, have their own tax evasion schemes. The most universal of them is based on an elementary idea: profits can be reduced to zero, and costs cannot be raised higher. On paper, of course.
Trading companies, as a rule, are “very expensive” to transport cargo, rent a warehouse, guard goods and water flowers on a rented window sill.
You can go a little further. Most "advanced" gas station chains, for example, establish "independent" supply middlemen with zero assets (a table, two chairs, a telephone). These suppliers purchase gasoline, transport it, guard it, etc. Then they “deliver” it to gas stations at almost retail price. Even if their activities cause criticism from the tax authorities, there is nothing to take from the intermediaries.
Manufacturing companies, firstly, can have the same wasteful suppliers, and secondly, regularly repair fixed assets. For example, paint facades, and only with the most expensive paint and only in winter, so that next year everything will have to be repainted again.
Traders and manufacturers also have other schemes - purely financial ones. The simplest of them is to take out a loan from a friendly bank and pay them crazy interest rates.
There is another option - to insure any of your “assets” against the most unthinkable cases. Insurance is received either by a friendly company, or simply by a competent insurance company that is ready to “return” the money to any offshore for a very reasonable percentage. After the 1998 crisis, prices for these services remained at the level of 5-10%.
Payroll tax
The size of the tax exceeds all imaginable limits. Having paid an employee 100 rubles, the employer must pay about 70 rubles to the budget. Money, of course, is a pity, and therefore the so-called circulation scheme is used with the involvement of “your” bank. The bank lends to the enterprise, it “issues” interest-free loans to employees, they “carry” the money back to the bank, after which they receive interest for it (in the amount of their salary).
A couple of years ago, the state tried to close this loophole by imposing an income tax on any loans with interest rates below the Central Bank refinancing rate. However, the costs of this method still do not exceed 15% (and also taking into account the taxes that employees had to pay to the state for the income received in the form of interest from the bank).
Turnover taxes
The scheme for evading turnover taxes is similar to that used when evading export VAT. For example, road organizations, as a rule, struggle to receive the budgetary funds due to them, which are generated from taxes in the road fund. Therefore, it is not so difficult to agree on a mutual offset with road workers: having received the money (even in a smaller amount), they will confirm the “purity” of the donor to the tax department. In this way, you can save 10-40% of the amount of tax required to be transferred to the budget. Road funds receive 30-40% of what they are owed. They, however, are happy about this: the money is “real” and they received it without red tape.
Spending
The easiest way to steal is when the state wants to spend budget funds. Estimates for the construction and repair of roads and real estate are inflated, targeted loans disappear, and payments are made from the Pension Fund to long-dead pensioners. The final consumer of budget funds, according to some experts, receives no more than 10% of what the state wanted to give him.
Investment projects
A very popular method is to involve the state in investment projects. The most important thing here is to organize a competent PR campaign: the public must become aware of the importance of the project.
A textbook example of the international level is the re-equipment of the entire computer park of the world under the pretext of the “2000 problem”. Bill Gates convinced the governments of dozens of countries to fork out. To be fair, we note that Russia turned out to be one of the few countries that was almost not affected by the “2000 problem” at the state level. However, we have quite a few grandiose projects of our own. The Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the monument to Peter, the renovation of the Kremlin, the Moscow-Petersburg highway, into which about $200 million has already been “buried” in four years. Examples can be continued.
Sale of state property
An auction of state property can be held in such a way that everyone is satisfied except the owner himself. There are literally no shortage of people with the money to participate in these auctions. Therefore, they can agree without difficulty. Entrepreneurs are deeply convinced that there are no fair auctions in principle. Even abroad. The difference is that “their” real value differs from what the experts of the “sales” commission will deduce by no more than two times, but with us it can be several orders of magnitude.
Conservation
Strange as it may seem, the most unpredictable metamorphoses occur with property that is simply in state ownership. This is the state treasury, consisting of money and real estate, and state stakes in various enterprises.
Loans
In the case of loans from the state Central Bank and Sberbank, the main thing is personal connections. Banks that have these connections manage to obtain extremely profitable loans from Sberbank or the Central Bank. By then placing them at market rates, these banks receive the income that the state could well receive.
The most famous and large-scale embezzlement of the treasury took place during the heyday of state bonds in conjunction with the currency corridor. It was only necessary to have access to cheap foreign currency loans from Sberbank. For those who had this access, it was enough to take out a foreign currency loan at 10%, buy government bonds with it, and then receive an income of about 100% per annum on these bonds - albeit in rubles. The presence of a stable currency corridor completed this grandiose scheme: he took it from the state at 10%, and lent it back, but at 100%.
By the way, recently the government has again started talking about the fact that there is too much free money in the country and it would be good to “bind” it with some kind of government securities. Perhaps a new GKO will be born - after all, the same people work in the securities and debt management departments of the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance as during the GKO era. They just have more experience.
Collateral lending
The most famous scheme is collateral auctions. An entrepreneur gives the state an obviously non-repayable loan, as security for which he receives a state block of shares in a large industrial enterprise. This scheme, despite the major scandals associated with it, remains legal to this day.
Broker surprise
Some government stakes are transferred to legal entities for management. The latter often use an ingenious scheme involving a broker. The shares are transferred to the broker for nominal holding, and with a mandatory condition (in professional language it is called “stop-loss”): if the price of the shares on the market reaches a certain lower limit, the broker is obliged to immediately sell the shares in order to protect the client from possible catastrophic losses. After concluding such a transaction, a lightning-fast collapse usually occurs, as a result of which the broker “honestly” sells the shares in an unknown direction.
By the way, this same scheme works flawlessly in various legal proceedings. As a rule, the court, before making a decision on the disputed shares, prohibits the defendant from any transactions with them. This is where an agreement between the defendant and the broker comes to light, according to which the broker, being in a “stop-loss” situation, sells the disputed shares. As a result, neither one nor the other law was violated, and the shares melted away.
Additional issue
The person representing the state in the joint-stock company is given a bribe by other shareholders. And this person point-blank “does not notice” the additional emission. The newly issued shares are bought up by bribery shareholders. And the share of the enterprise’s assets, which is now owned by the state, decreases tenfold.
Hazing
A regional industrial corporation is being organized for the purpose of more efficient activities for the benefit of something, which includes all enterprises in the region along with the administration. A joint stock company is established, to which everyone contributes what they can. Administration - state blocks of shares held by the local property management committee. For this she gets, for example, a quarter or even a third of the newly formed local giant. The remaining shares are evenly distributed among industrial enterprises in the region. The next step: some community member (or group of friends) buys out shares from those members of the corporation who prefer “real” money to participation in a grandiose project. Having taken possession of a controlling stake, the player receives the legal right to dispose of the corporation’s assets, a significant part of which consists of government stakes in regional enterprises.
How the state steals
So that the state does not appear so unfortunate in the published review, let us draw attention to the fact that it is also flawed in relation to its citizens. Let's give just one example. According to the Personal Income Tax Law, we must pay taxes once a year no later than April 1st. However, the Accounting Regulations and other instructions oblige our employers to withdraw and transfer this tax to the budget on a monthly basis - each time a salary is calculated. Thus, we lend to the state completely free of charge.
Let's take, for example, an average metropolitan manager with a salary of $500 a month and see how much he will lose on this in 2001. Every month he could transfer 13% of his salary (and this is the income tax rate that will come into effect next year) to Sberbank. Even if he put money into the most miserable deposit (8% per annum), he could save about $55 after paying taxes to the state in a year. And if he had moved a little and placed savings at rates close to market rates, he would have saved up to $400.
For 1999, according to the Ministry of Taxes, the total amount of income tax collected was 117 billion rubles. (about $4 billion). If the state is as smart as the mentioned manager, it could easily earn more than 60 billion rubles from this. (about $2 billion). We can assume that citizens selflessly donated this amount to the state as compensation for everything stolen.
The presented review does not claim to be complete. If readers find it possible to share with the editors other ways they know of taking money from the state, Vlast will continue this topic.
(с) SVETLANA KHOLODKOVA
https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/17831
Let us immediately make a reservation that we will understand the term “budget” here in a non-scientific sense. Namely, like all state property and property of local governments. To understand where state property flows, let’s consider three aspects of the budget: its replenishment, spending and conservation.
Replenishment
The vast majority of citizens underpay taxes to the state without even thinking about it. For example, if a citizen has a privatized apartment, the state expects him to pay tax on his real estate by April 1. On average, this tax (for an average two-room apartment) is about 15 rubles per year. However, a citizen will most likely never even know about the existence of such a tax. After all, the basis for charging this amount from him is a certificate from the BTI, which the tax office itself must request and pay 150 rubles for it. It is clear that the taxpayer can rest easy.
Entrepreneurs sleep much less peacefully as they develop a non-payment scheme for each of the numerous taxes. We will consider these schemes, immediately making the reservation that outright crime, such as the production of “unaccounted for” products and the purchase of “a meter of the state border” when no taxes are paid, will remain behind the scenes.
Import
About 90% of goods imported into the country are passed through documents that underestimate either the quantity of goods or their quality. For example, high-quality goods are imported into Russia under the guise of broken tiles, erasers (worth tens of millions of dollars), expensive wool is listed on paper as technical synthetics, etc. Six computers are passed off in documents as one, which (these are, supposedly, the conditions for the configuration and supplies) is packaged in parts into six boxes. Customs clearance is estimated at 50% of the cost of goods sold.
Before the introduction of excise stamps and other deposit barriers, customs handling of alcoholic beverages was generally extremely unpretentious. For example, a truck with vodka entered the country. After border control, she went to the customs clearance area. But on the way, the driver suddenly urgently needed a snack. Or according to need. He came out full and/or happy - there was no truck. The driver wrote a statement to the police, and meanwhile the truck was unloaded in a nearby nook. The police soon found her, but without the taxable cargo.
Now this scheme does not work: before bringing alcohol into the country, you need to purchase an excise stamp for each milliliter, deliver these stamps to the manufacturing plant, where they will be stuck on bottles sent to Russia, then deposit 100% of the duty on what is planned for import in the customs accounts amount of alcohol, and also indicate in advance the exact address of the customs terminal that will carry out customs clearance of the cargo.
When importing cars, a different scheme was in effect. Since citizens who had lived abroad for the last three years were allowed to import a car duty-free, entrepreneurs were actively “working with documents,” and the number of citizens who missed their homeland after a three-year absence became more and more numerous.
This loophole was recently closed, but for some reason imported cars in Russia have not risen in price at all. Importers of used cars began to enjoy another concession - a significantly reduced duty on cars three or more years old. And very mysterious things began to happen with new cars. For example, our importers buy new cars from warehouses in Finland at some prohibitively low prices (Saab 9-5 - for $17 thousand, Nissan Primera - for $9-12 thousand). From such “customs values” (the term of the State Customs Committee) duties are calculated and paid. So the work with documents continues.
Export
According to Russian laws, raw materials exported from the country are subject to duty, and for finished products, according to international standards, the state is obliged to return to the exporter in full the value added tax that was imposed on the goods at all stages of production in the country. Entrepreneurs deal with raw materials simply: “raw” sheet aluminum, for example, is easily converted into a finished product called a “collapsible aluminum hangar” by drilling four holes in each sheet along the edges. Instead of crude oil (which, by the way, contains water), you can export, say, a “product” with the duty-free name “water-oil mixture”. There is a well-known story when, at the dawn of perestroika, a huge batch of titanium shovels was taken out of the country. After crossing the border, the cuttings were disposed of and the raw material was delivered to the client in the best possible condition.
As for VAT, of course, the state never thought of returning it, so entrepreneurs developed a compensation mechanism. An exporting company merges into a holding with a partner who must pay VAT to the state for products for the domestic market. Intercompany netting frees the state from having to pay the exporter. But it also deprives the exporter of income from the partner. At the same time, however, about 10% of the total winnings goes to costs: you have to support those who organize all this.
Fictitious export
This method is a creative development of the titanium shovel theme and is becoming increasingly popular. In order to avoid paying VAT within the country, entrepreneurs begin to export some fantastic things. An ordinary cabinet, for example, is equipped with a switch. After which the product is declared as an exclusive household item that people are willing to buy abroad for a million dollars. Or a “documentary” about the exciting life of the Moscow metro is shot on an ordinary videotape, which is then allegedly sold to curious foreigners for several hundred thousand dollars.
The scale of fictitious exports is such that about six months ago, an interdepartmental center was created under the Ministry of Internal Affairs to combat the legalization of illegal income. However, the authorities are clearly aware of their powerlessness - there is no legal mechanism to suppress such activities. And therefore, the interdepartmental center is still collecting information in order to someday develop amendments to the legislation on its basis. According to some information, in order not to get into its database, you need to pay $50-100 thousand.
Income tax and VAT
Entrepreneurs, deprived of communication with customs, have their own tax evasion schemes. The most universal of them is based on an elementary idea: profits can be reduced to zero, and costs cannot be raised higher. On paper, of course.
Trading companies, as a rule, are “very expensive” to transport cargo, rent a warehouse, guard goods and water flowers on a rented window sill.
You can go a little further. Most "advanced" gas station chains, for example, establish "independent" supply middlemen with zero assets (a table, two chairs, a telephone). These suppliers purchase gasoline, transport it, guard it, etc. Then they “deliver” it to gas stations at almost retail price. Even if their activities cause criticism from the tax authorities, there is nothing to take from the intermediaries.
Manufacturing companies, firstly, can have the same wasteful suppliers, and secondly, regularly repair fixed assets. For example, paint facades, and only with the most expensive paint and only in winter, so that next year everything will have to be repainted again.
Traders and manufacturers also have other schemes - purely financial ones. The simplest of them is to take out a loan from a friendly bank and pay them crazy interest rates.
There is another option - to insure any of your “assets” against the most unthinkable cases. Insurance is received either by a friendly company, or simply by a competent insurance company that is ready to “return” the money to any offshore for a very reasonable percentage. After the 1998 crisis, prices for these services remained at the level of 5-10%.
Payroll tax
The size of the tax exceeds all imaginable limits. Having paid an employee 100 rubles, the employer must pay about 70 rubles to the budget. Money, of course, is a pity, and therefore the so-called circulation scheme is used with the involvement of “your” bank. The bank lends to the enterprise, it “issues” interest-free loans to employees, they “carry” the money back to the bank, after which they receive interest for it (in the amount of their salary).
A couple of years ago, the state tried to close this loophole by imposing an income tax on any loans with interest rates below the Central Bank refinancing rate. However, the costs of this method still do not exceed 15% (and also taking into account the taxes that employees had to pay to the state for the income received in the form of interest from the bank).
Turnover taxes
The scheme for evading turnover taxes is similar to that used when evading export VAT. For example, road organizations, as a rule, struggle to receive the budgetary funds due to them, which are generated from taxes in the road fund. Therefore, it is not so difficult to agree on a mutual offset with road workers: having received the money (even in a smaller amount), they will confirm the “purity” of the donor to the tax department. In this way, you can save 10-40% of the amount of tax required to be transferred to the budget. Road funds receive 30-40% of what they are owed. They, however, are happy about this: the money is “real” and they received it without red tape.
Spending
The easiest way to steal is when the state wants to spend budget funds. Estimates for the construction and repair of roads and real estate are inflated, targeted loans disappear, and payments are made from the Pension Fund to long-dead pensioners. The final consumer of budget funds, according to some experts, receives no more than 10% of what the state wanted to give him.
Investment projects
A very popular method is to involve the state in investment projects. The most important thing here is to organize a competent PR campaign: the public must become aware of the importance of the project.
A textbook example of the international level is the re-equipment of the entire computer park of the world under the pretext of the “2000 problem”. Bill Gates convinced the governments of dozens of countries to fork out. To be fair, we note that Russia turned out to be one of the few countries that was almost not affected by the “2000 problem” at the state level. However, we have quite a few grandiose projects of our own. The Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the monument to Peter, the renovation of the Kremlin, the Moscow-Petersburg highway, into which about $200 million has already been “buried” in four years. Examples can be continued.
Sale of state property
An auction of state property can be held in such a way that everyone is satisfied except the owner himself. There are literally no shortage of people with the money to participate in these auctions. Therefore, they can agree without difficulty. Entrepreneurs are deeply convinced that there are no fair auctions in principle. Even abroad. The difference is that “their” real value differs from what the experts of the “sales” commission will deduce by no more than two times, but with us it can be several orders of magnitude.
Conservation
Strange as it may seem, the most unpredictable metamorphoses occur with property that is simply in state ownership. This is the state treasury, consisting of money and real estate, and state stakes in various enterprises.
Loans
In the case of loans from the state Central Bank and Sberbank, the main thing is personal connections. Banks that have these connections manage to obtain extremely profitable loans from Sberbank or the Central Bank. By then placing them at market rates, these banks receive the income that the state could well receive.
The most famous and large-scale embezzlement of the treasury took place during the heyday of state bonds in conjunction with the currency corridor. It was only necessary to have access to cheap foreign currency loans from Sberbank. For those who had this access, it was enough to take out a foreign currency loan at 10%, buy government bonds with it, and then receive an income of about 100% per annum on these bonds - albeit in rubles. The presence of a stable currency corridor completed this grandiose scheme: he took it from the state at 10%, and lent it back, but at 100%.
By the way, recently the government has again started talking about the fact that there is too much free money in the country and it would be good to “bind” it with some kind of government securities. Perhaps a new GKO will be born - after all, the same people work in the securities and debt management departments of the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance as during the GKO era. They just have more experience.
Collateral lending
The most famous scheme is collateral auctions. An entrepreneur gives the state an obviously non-repayable loan, as security for which he receives a state block of shares in a large industrial enterprise. This scheme, despite the major scandals associated with it, remains legal to this day.
Broker surprise
Some government stakes are transferred to legal entities for management. The latter often use an ingenious scheme involving a broker. The shares are transferred to the broker for nominal holding, and with a mandatory condition (in professional language it is called “stop-loss”): if the price of the shares on the market reaches a certain lower limit, the broker is obliged to immediately sell the shares in order to protect the client from possible catastrophic losses. After concluding such a transaction, a lightning-fast collapse usually occurs, as a result of which the broker “honestly” sells the shares in an unknown direction.
By the way, this same scheme works flawlessly in various legal proceedings. As a rule, the court, before making a decision on the disputed shares, prohibits the defendant from any transactions with them. This is where an agreement between the defendant and the broker comes to light, according to which the broker, being in a “stop-loss” situation, sells the disputed shares. As a result, neither one nor the other law was violated, and the shares melted away.
Additional issue
The person representing the state in the joint-stock company is given a bribe by other shareholders. And this person point-blank “does not notice” the additional emission. The newly issued shares are bought up by bribery shareholders. And the share of the enterprise’s assets, which is now owned by the state, decreases tenfold.
Hazing
A regional industrial corporation is being organized for the purpose of more efficient activities for the benefit of something, which includes all enterprises in the region along with the administration. A joint stock company is established, to which everyone contributes what they can. Administration - state blocks of shares held by the local property management committee. For this she gets, for example, a quarter or even a third of the newly formed local giant. The remaining shares are evenly distributed among industrial enterprises in the region. The next step: some community member (or group of friends) buys out shares from those members of the corporation who prefer “real” money to participation in a grandiose project. Having taken possession of a controlling stake, the player receives the legal right to dispose of the corporation’s assets, a significant part of which consists of government stakes in regional enterprises.
How the state steals
So that the state does not appear so unfortunate in the published review, let us draw attention to the fact that it is also flawed in relation to its citizens. Let's give just one example. According to the Personal Income Tax Law, we must pay taxes once a year no later than April 1st. However, the Accounting Regulations and other instructions oblige our employers to withdraw and transfer this tax to the budget on a monthly basis - each time a salary is calculated. Thus, we lend to the state completely free of charge.
Let's take, for example, an average metropolitan manager with a salary of $500 a month and see how much he will lose on this in 2001. Every month he could transfer 13% of his salary (and this is the income tax rate that will come into effect next year) to Sberbank. Even if he put money into the most miserable deposit (8% per annum), he could save about $55 after paying taxes to the state in a year. And if he had moved a little and placed savings at rates close to market rates, he would have saved up to $400.
For 1999, according to the Ministry of Taxes, the total amount of income tax collected was 117 billion rubles. (about $4 billion). If the state is as smart as the mentioned manager, it could easily earn more than 60 billion rubles from this. (about $2 billion). We can assume that citizens selflessly donated this amount to the state as compensation for everything stolen.
The presented review does not claim to be complete. If readers find it possible to share with the editors other ways they know of taking money from the state, Vlast will continue this topic.
(с) SVETLANA KHOLODKOVA
https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/17831
