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Russians forced to put hands deeper in pockets for statutory fees
Published: 29 January, 2010, 16:53
Edited: 29 January, 2010, 19:53
TAGS: Crisis, Budget, Big deal, Economy
On Friday, amendments to the Tax Code boosting the price of some governmental services two or even fourfold become effective, brining an estimated additional 30 billion Roubles, or about $1 billion, to Russia's budget.
These include the cost of issuing a foreign passport, which will grow from 400 Roubles ($13) a thousand Roubles ($33) for an ordinary version, and from 1 thousand Roubles to 2.5 thousand Roubles ($83) for one with electronic media; issuing a driving license will go up from 200 Roubles ($6.7) to 800 Roubles ($26.7). The price of a Russian domestic passport will double to 200 Roubles, and it will cost 500 Roubles ($16.7) to replace a lost passport, compared to the 150 Roubles ($5) previously charged. It will also cost twice as much to open a subsidiary of a foreign company, reaching 120 thousand Roubles ($4 thousand) while the fee for registration of a foreigner or a person without citizenship in his temporary residence will double to four Roubles (13 cents) a day.
According to Andrey Matveev, a deputy chief of the press-service in the Ministry of Finance, the law was adopted “as it was necessary to create an additional source for budget revenue in the budget system of the Russian Federation, an average growth of consumer goods prices in respect to the inflation level.”
By the Ministry of Finance estimate, with amendments coming into force the budget will attain about 30 billion additional rubles. And in 2010, total state revenue from fees will be about 79.9 billion Roubles ($2.7 billion), Kommersant reported yesterday.
In the meantime, Sergey Aleksashenko, head of the Macroeconomic Research Department at the Higher School of Economics, said talking to RT that any decision resulting in additional burden for citizens would be unpopular.
“It’s really difficult to explain to people the reason for such a significant price jump, especially given that the quality of the services won’t change anyhow. People will suffer in long queues as before, and bribery will continue to flourish.”
Mikhail Yemelianov, a member of the State Duma Committee on constitutional legislation and governmental structure, is also negative, saying that it is not the best time for increasing fees in the light of people’s current financial situation.
“At present, from a financial point of view, our people are not having the best time and new fees will become a seriously annoying factor for them. And from the budgetary point of view, new fee revenue is not such an amount which could save the Russian economy. We can wait with them.”
Aleksashenko adds that the only real and more efficient way to bring additional money to Russia’s budget starts with Russia’s bureaucrats, “who need to start stealing less from the budget.”
29.01.2010, 11:42
2 comments
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No kidding it isn't a good idea to increase fees! If they have problems with the budget it is their own fault for not finalizing it in time and acting. As always the government will lay the responsibility of their own actions on the people. Add that to the prices of public transport, utilities, food, and various other things increasing by 30 to 50% and there is a real source of anger. Many people are only paying for utilities and have no source of income for food. Then you claim to want and fight alcoholism, crime, and Caucus Criminals... The front line warriors to all these problems are economists! Having a strong middle class solves majority of problems. Corruption would solve another lot. However, there is no common sense in government. Expect public non payers on services then extra expenses on paying for people to catch them. You'll waste more money they you wanted to make. That's guaranteed. Just put a target on yourself for the future protests...
I'll try to put this to good use immeidatley.