In 2021-2023 the Ministry of Finance will be looking for 5.4 trillion rubles in the pockets of Russians

There will not be enough money for everything - this is the main message of the new budget and our officials. But the reality: in 2021, the Russian budget will not have enough 2.75 trillion rubles (2.4% of GDP), in 2022 the budget will miss 1.25 trillion rubles (1% of GDP), in 2023 the budget will grow to 1.41 trillion rubles (1.1% of GDP). And this is all in addition to a deficit of 4.72 trillion rubles in 2020. The Ministry of Finance will have to try very hard to figure out how to patch these holes. We urgently need a kind of new Sailors (only financial), ready to rush to the embrasure...

But even with such a rather large deficit in the budget, the Finance Ministry's expectations remain for some reason very rosy and hardly realistic. Let us explain why.

First, the government assumes that oil will rise in price to $ 47.5 per barrel by 2023. Making such predictions now is like hitting the sky with your finger. Especially against the backdrop of the gradual curtailment of the OPEC + deal and the readiness of Saudi Arabia to distribute oil discounts on demand. So the plans to receive 6.03 trillion rubles of oil and gas revenues in 2021, 6.88 trillion rubles in 2022 and 7.5 trillion in 2023 may not come true. In addition, Anton Siluanov recently revealed the secret of good forecasts for oil and gas revenues: the OPEC + deal is not taken into account when preparing the budget for 2021.

Secondly, the Ministry of Economic Development gives very strange figures on GDP dynamics: while the Central Bank expects the economy to fall by 5% -5.5% in 2020, the IMF predicts a decline of 6.6%, and the most loyal agency Moody's says recession by 4.6%, Maxim Reshetnikov promises a loss of only 3.9% with further spontaneous economic recovery. Alas, business surveys, according to which 40% of entrepreneurs have nothing to pay taxes with for the year, look much more realistic. And bankruptcies of enterprises are again budget losses.

Thirdly, the factor of unplanned spending cannot be disregarded. To the same Belarus, for example. The decision was recently made to refinance the debt of neighbors for $ 1 billion, and last week a new loan of $ 1.5 billion was allocated. Moreover, such decisions are made with lightning speed and do not fit into budget planning. And, judging by the reaction of Europe, Belarus will need help from Russia more than once. And together with it, our country runs the risk of running into new sanctions, which will further restrict the export of hydrocarbons.

What to do? For Siluanov and Mishustin, this is not a question - of course, to raise taxes. Starting next year, a revision of the tax on added income for oil workers, a 3.5-fold increase in the tax on mineral extraction (it will affect the extraction of metal ores and fertilizers) and an increase in the excise tax on cigarettes by 20% will have to give about 300 billion rubles a year. Over the next three years, new taxes will cover only 17% of the hole. New taxes, which people will eventually pay by buying goods that have risen in price, will further slow down the economic recovery - scientists have not yet identified other patterns.

Therefore, the Ministry of Finance will have to borrow. To borrow a lot. And if the United States does not have any problems with the placement of the state debt - everyone is ready to lend them, and the money received goes to the development of the economy, then in Russia the situation is different. Over the summer, non-residents brought in only 35.9 billion rubles, while the entire Ministry of Finance borrowed 805 billion rubles. All hope is only for the largest Russian banks, which are buying out the state debt, but even then only after the Ministry of Finance itself gives them money by placing free funds on deposits or through repo transactions. So far, patching holes is putting money from pocket to pocket. But how long will it last?