Yelena Ivanova, Natalia Seibil
Despite the fall in federal budget revenues and its transformation from surplus to deficit, some analysts drew attention to the fact that the treasury collected taxes from the population by 7.5% more than in the previous year, 2019, in which no one had heard of the pandemic. This percentage even exceeds the growth of nominal wages by 6% . This suggests that the salaries of the state apparatus and state employees have grown, as well as the incomes of employees of enterprises with state participation. But another truth is that the tax authorities have begun to act much tougher, squeezing every last penny out of taxpayers.
Other market experts call this tactic "improving tax administration." It's just that the tax authorities have become more accurate and efficient in collecting taxes. This is normal in a crisis. If we compare year to year - yes, there has been an increase, confirms the traveling expert of the Institute of Contemporary Development Nikita Maslennikov. But not only that. The amount of taxes collected increased due to large businesses:
- Plus, a fairly serious whitewashing of the economy has gone. Is the severance tax growing, does the oil and gas sector pay taxes? Gives it away! Excise taxes were collected and collected. What's the problem here? Naturally, the amount increases. We have more administration, and taxation in the oil and gas sector is growing, because the situation has changed, especially in the second half of the year. Large enterprises paid taxes, earned additional taxes - “pay five million and sleep in peace”. All these things had an effect.
In small business, the situation is completely different. SME profits fell sharply in 2020. Russian small business lost 2.8 trillion rubles in turnover during the year of the pandemic. We are talking not only about the businessmen themselves, but also about their clients. On the other hand, the number of self-employed has increased by 1 million. They paid 4% more taxes.
But taxes are state revenues. The incomes of citizens have decreased immeasurably more strongly. About 50% of the Russian population fell below the real poverty line. The number of people talking about their material distress is even higher - 65% live either in a state of outright poverty or poverty.
Because of the crisis, all the same suffered - the most unprotected. Analysts say that business activity in the informal sector of the economy contracted much faster last year than in the white. Let us recall that the shadow sector of the Russian economy accounts for 45% of GDP.
"Those who received salaries in an envelope began to receive much less or stopped receiving altogether. They are not protected by anything. They were simply thrown out into the street", - says economist Maslennikov.
Actual disposable expenses decreased by 3.5% over the year. This suggests that real wages have decreased compared to 2019. The number of unemployed has grown by 3 million. These indicators explain why the number of poor people in our country is growing.
Despite the fact that they supported state employees, families with children, increased unemployment benefits, which began to receive not only hired workers, but also former individual entrepreneurs who were registered as unemployed, Maslennikov calls these measures palliative. Without them, the number of the poor would have grown even more. However, questions often arose about how and to whom they helped. Somewhere people were helped to hold out for a month or two. However, this does not remove the main question - what next?
Poverty is becoming a political factor not only in the long term, but also in the short term. The upcoming elections to the State Duma will be extremely painful for the authorities, political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin believes:
- The Kremlin has a very difficult situation. Perhaps unprecedentedly difficult in twenty years. The economy grew for the first ten years, and Putin was popular. The situation can be compared with 2013, before the Ukrainian events, when the ratings of both Putin and United Russia were going downhill. But then there was no increase in poverty, and the drop in the rating was quickly compensated for by the Crimean epic. Now it has run out of steam, and a new surge is nowhere to be seen - neither in Belarus, nor in Ukraine. The focus of the election campaign will be economic issues, and this is very painful for the Kremlin. Nothing good can be said.
It is obvious that the state has a lot of money in its stash. One National Welfare Fund totals over 13.5 trillion rubles as of March 1, 2021, or 11% of GDP. Dmitry Oreshkin says that money will, of course, begin to be distributed to poor families and families with children, but not through the regions, but through United Russia, in order to raise its shaken rating.
However, this is a tactic. The strategy should look very different.
The government does not understand how the assistance that poor families receive from the government is spent, so the first thing it needs to do is to improve the effectiveness of social assistance. The Accounts Chamber analyzed measures to support the poor and suggested calculating aid based on family income. The head of the joint venture, Alexei Kudrin, spoke about this in the Federation Council. What Kudrin proposes is absolutely the right decision, Nikita Maslennikov believes:
"Change focus, pay attention to the real situation! And you can give an allowance to families with children, but there will be a deficit. They spend on something else, you do not understand how this aid is spent. You just need to reboot the entire system of social assistance to the population based on the creation of a social treasury. Create an integrated database on income and expenditures of the population, for each family a specific balance".
A person should not run anywhere and collect any information, says the economist. The state should monitor and note the deficit of the personal budget and inform those in need through the State Services that he is entitled to help.
"If you want a direct transfer - an option, if you want a social contract with a loan for education - it's also an option. Let's discuss what is more profitable for you. This should be a social policy, then the number of the poor will be steadily decreasing in our country".
But for now, the state cares not about the poor, but about the rich: from this year, Russian millionaires through controlled foreign companies have the right to pay a ready-made tax on all their tens and hundreds of dollar million in the amount of 5 million rubles, or a little more than 70 thousand dollars.
The 93 million Russian citizens living in poverty can hardly call this state of affairs social justice.