Question of the day: what will business get in exchange for a "voluntary fee"?

As Novye Izvestia has already reported, the so-called "voluntary contribution" is going to be levied by the country's authorities from companies whose average profit in 2021-2022 was more than 1 billion rubles. This is exactly what will be spelled out in the Tax Code. Moreover, voluntariness "in this case is expressed by a consolidated consent to its payment on the part of leading business associations". 

It is interesting at the same time that the oil and gas sector has been excluded from the category of companies that will allegedly voluntarily give their money under the pretext that other changes in taxes and a damper have been prepared for it.

Experts of the Blah-blah-nomika channel noted that, in fact, there are very few purely "raw materials" in the rating of companies that fall under the new criterion. In the list of the Expert magazine, in 2021 there were 242 companies with a net profit of 1 billion rubles in the country, and if we exclude oil and gas companies from them, then 224. At the same time, their total profit is approximately equal to the total profit of the excluded.

In total, 6 coal companies, more than 70 trading companies, more than 20 ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, 20 from the agro-industrial complex and food industry, 16 from mechanical engineering, 12 from the chemical and petrochemical industries, etc. will remain on this list. That is, they will "voluntarily" collect money from those who, according to experts, need to be stimulated on the contrary!

Moreover, the situation has only worsened in 2022. "The composition of companies with profits of this level will decrease — many have sharply dropped both production and financial indicators. And in the economy as a whole, financial results worsened at the end of the year. It is very likely that in 2022 fewer companies would fall under the tax than in 2021 — but this does not make its negative consequences less ...". - experts write.

And they add: "The main negative that is now associated with this gathering is that all the discussion held in the public plane revolves around the question "from whom to take", but absolutely does not affect another important question — what will business get in return for providing such "voluntary assistance"? If the situation is so critical now that it is necessary to introduce an additional fee, then it would be very useful for the investment climate, and in general the image of Russia as a place of doing business, to point out such mechanisms. Moreover, there are potentially a lot of them — such compensation can serve, for example, a reduction in the debt burden, a "freeze" or a reduction in tariffs, a reduction in the tax burden in the medium term...".