The Ministry of Finance did not support the abolition of consolidated groups of taxpayers, but figured out how not to ruin the budgets of the constituent entities.
The regions will receive from the Ministry of Finance a small tax break. The Agency figured out how to increase tax revenues to the budgets of the constituent entities, but it does not greatly increase the burden on business. The Finance Ministry plans to limit the transfer of losses from previous years in the framework of the consolidated group of taxpayers (CTG) 30%. In doing so, the regions and the head of the budget Committee of the state Duma Andrey Makarov were all for the abolition of the CTG, which deprive the subjects of tens of billions of rubles a year. The Finance Ministry found a compromise will be able to support regional budgets and will not lead to catastrophic increase in the tax burden on business, experts believe.
Tax on profits of companies is a major revenue for regional budgets. However, formed in previous years REAG reduce tax revenues to the budgets of subjects because if, for example, one company within the group has received a substantial loss, it is deducted from the tax base — the income of the entire group. In the end, the CTG may not pay anything at all.
The creation of the CTG became possible in 2013, and immediately led to a reduction in tax revenues in regional budgets. Only in the first year the regions have lost 11 billion rubles in the whole country. In the future, comparable to the size of the shortfall is recorded for the selected regions. According to the tax authorities, after the introduction of consolidated groups of taxpayers the revenues from income tax declined in 34 regions of Russia.
At PwC noted that the proposal of the Ministry of Finance will reduce the rate of recognition of the loss (in terms of inflation is unfavourable for taxpayers, innovation), but will gradually accept the loss as a whole. According to experts, limiting the recognition of losses within the OAG for groups with a large number of loss-making companies may mean the increase of the tax burden, and for the rest of the CTG — only increase the administrative burden.
Regions which sought the abolition of the CTG, accepted the decision of the Ministry of Finance with optimism. However, to assess the financial effect is difficult. The government of the Samara region added that in comparison with 2011 (the year preceding the introduction of CGT) losses of the regional budget in connection with the introduction of CGT in 2015 amounted to 7.6 billion rubles, in 2016 — about 6.3 billion rubles.
Nizhny Novgorod region is among the regions that incur significant financial losses from the creation of the CTG (about 6 billion rubles annually), reported in a press-service of the government entity.
— The government of the Nizhny Novgorod region has repeatedly come out with similar proposal at the Federal level. Thus for 2012-2015 compensated from the Federal budget only 6.8 billion rubles, which accounted for 35% of the amount of losses of the regional budget, — said the representative of the Executive power of the region.
The proposed innovation is aimed at reducing the flexibility of the OAG on optimization of income tax and increase revenues — in this regard the proposal is supported, said the representative of the press service of the government of Bashkortostan.
— The expected effect of the introduction of the proposed measures is difficult to determine because of the lack of necessary statistical information, he said.
In turn, the Ministry of Finance of the Kaluga region explained that in this region it is CTG, so the changes will not affect budget revenues. However, there is hope that in the future the abolition of the CTG should have a positive impact on the revenue budgets of those regions on the territory of which was REAG, and Federal revenues.
Head of the Department of state regulation of economy, Ranepa Vladimir Klimanov believes that the government in the current environment it is difficult to make a decision about the abolition of the CTG, but also to maintain the status quo is also dangerous, so the Finance Ministry is trying to find a technical solution.
For the Ministry of Finance it is important to increase revenues to the budgets of the regions, which is facing an acute crisis in high-debt burden and significant deficit. In the current year, the main creditor of the entities whose liabilities exceeded 2.5 trillion rubles, became the Federal center. On the other hand, greatly increase the load on production in a recession and the need for import substitution, the Finance Ministry is not solved. However, the load still can grow.
According to Vladimir Klimanova, because the CTG primarily set among vertically integrated holdings in the raw materials industry and metallurgy, these companies will grow the tax base.
I will hurt some businesses. First of all vertically integrated holdings in resource industries — oil and gas or metallurgy. But the overall effect will be neutral, he said.
