Russian officials offered to collect a "tax on bloggers" from the Western social networks

The initiative to introduce a "tax on bloggers" in Russia was made by the Ministry of Digital Industry. They want to oblige the owners of foreign social networks to pay it: Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok.

"For this, it is proposed to adopt a federal law, its draft is planned to be prepared by the middle of this year", - Kommersant reports.

According to Vedomosti, the order will be executed by the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economy and the Federal Tax Service. If we modify the chapter of the Tax Code on transfers of foreign companies to the settlement accounts of Russians, adding that the payer himself must pay personal income tax for the recipient, then each recipient of money will have to be accountable for advertising funds.

Experts have calculated that Russian bloggers earned at least 18 billion rubles in 2020 on video content alone, significantly increasing their income amid the pandemic. At the same time, bloggers receive money from paid advertising to their personal account, which banks and tax authorities do not perceive as commercial if the payment does not exceed 500 thousand rubles. Because of this loophole, the budget loses billions of rubles annually.

At the end of last year, the richest YouTube blogger in the country turned out to be a stand-up with TNT Nurlan Saburov and his partners on the Labelcom channel, who earned more than $ 3.5 million from advertising. Technoblogger Valentin Petukhov, comedian, was also included in the top 15 YouTube bloggers in terms of advertising revenue. Alexander Gudkov, journalists Yuri Dud, Ksenia Sobchak (pictured), Irina Shikhman, actor Anton Lapenko and rapper Morgenshtern. Among Instagram bloggers, TV presenter Ksenia Sobchak turned out to be the richest for several years in a row, earning $ 1.5 million from advertising on her personal blog.Followed by singer Polina Gagarina with an income of almost $ 900 thousand and TV presenter Ida Galich - her social network brought her $ 850 thousand. The top ten most successful bloggers on Instagram are Ksenia Borodina, Anastasia Ivleeva, Yelena Temnikova and Olga Buzova.

Earlier, the Russian authorities came up with an initiative to introduce an additional " tax on Google " in the country, the proceeds of which will go to the development of the domestic IT industry.