russian companies are obliged to pay a one-time contribution to the russian budget by October-November, which the government demands from big business to close the deficit due to record war spending. The russia's Ministry of Finance demanded this, threatening to double the rate of the "excess profit tax" otherwise.
Source. This was reported by The Moscow Times with reference to Interfax.
According to them, the authorities expect large companies to pay 5% of the amount by which the profits of 2021-2022 exceeded those of 2018-2019. If the tax is not paid within the next six months, the rate will increase to 10%.
Formally, the law on the so-called windfall tax will come into force on January 1, 2024. Nevertheless, the russian authorities intend to force businesses to pay the contribution, which was initially declared as voluntary but was eventually formalized as mandatory, ahead of schedule.
In total, the russia's Ministry of Finance plans to collect 300 billion rubles ($2.4 billion) from companies whose net pre-tax profit exceeds 1 billion rubles.
This money should help close the gap in the russian budget, which in the first months of 2023 set a record for at least 25 years.
In January-March, the russian budget lost 45% of oil and gas revenues, 3.5% of fees from non-resource sectors of the economy, and received a 2.4 trillion ruble deficit with total expenditures of 8 trillion rubles.
The budget gap reached 7 trillion rubles after the russian government increased military spending by 1.5 times and spent a record 2.4 trillion rubles on secret items.