- MOSCOW (AP) - Like many Russians,
Nellie dreads her annual visits to the local tax office, with its long
lines, surly officials, and Byzantine tax forms. But recently, the 66-year-old
grandmother, who supplements her meager pension by cleaning apartments,
had a pleasant surprise.
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- "My taxes were three times lower," she said.
"They must have understood they were too high before."
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- Nellie is not alone. The government says more Russians
are paying income tax, thanks to an innovation that should hearten flat-tax
advocates.
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- Last year, President Vladimir Putin introduced a flat
tax on income of 13 percent - the lowest rate in Europe - designed to draw
more Russians out of the "shadow economy" and make them honest
taxpayers.
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- The results have been dramatic. Revenue from personal
income tax shot up nearly 47 percent last year, and tax revenue overall
rose 50 percent, according to government figures. Early results from 2002
look even better.
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- "We expect the number of people filling out income
tax forms to increase substantially," said Dmitri Mikulich, deputy
head of the Tax Ministry's individual income tax department.
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- For a society with a long history of distrusting the
government and hiding cash at home, the taxpaying boom marks something
of a revolution. But many analysts say it's too early to declare victory.
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- "So far, so good," said Alexander Morozov,
a senior economist at the World Bank in Moscow. "There are signs that
more people are paying personal income tax, but the process of moving from
shadow to light has only just started. There's a long way to go."
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- Small- and medium-sized Russian businesses complain they
still face an insuperable array of taxes.
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- The worst culprit, many say, is the "social tax"
of up to 35.6 percent on salaries, the equivalent of U.S. Social Security.
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- There's also a 5 percent sales tax, a 20 percent value-added
tax, a 5 percent advertising tax, a 2 percent property tax, a 1 percent
road tax, plus a 24 percent tax on net profits after most other taxes,
not to mention various registration fees.
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- "There's a sea of taxes," said Slava, 40, who
owns a travel agency in Moscow and declined to give his last name.
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- Like many other business owners, Slava operates under
a dual salary system. He slips his four employees an envelope of dollars
every month, but for the tax inspectors he keeps another set of records
on his books, showing much lower wages in rubles.
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- The gap between real and "official" salaries
is striking. Slava's employees make between $100 and $300 per month, while
on paper they earn a mere 500 to 1,300 rubles, equivalent to $16 and $42.
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- Most tax inspectors are willing to set aside their doubts
for a "gift," like a bottle of liquor, Slava said with a shrug.
Only through this sort of routine deception, he said, can he keep his business
from going under.
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- "If the government makes it a 13 percent tax for
business, just like for individuals, then I'm ready to pay it, but right
now there's no way," he said. "You'd have to turn over all your
profits."
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- Putin has promised to change that. Last month, he proposed
a tax reform package for small businesses, that he said would be "no
less revolutionary" than the flat tax on income.
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- The reforms would eliminate many taxes for small businesses,
and give them the option of paying a 20 percent tax on profit or 8 percent
on revenues.
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- Morozov of the World Bank says it's important to make
the taxpaying process less bureaucratic as well.
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- "The tax burden is not just the amount of tax, but
the time and effort it takes to fill out all the forms," he said.
"Unless it's simplified, it will be difficult for businesses to stay
afloat."
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