Luxury tax. We were again cheated?

The President has not fulfilled a campaign promise to introduce a tax on the super-expensive property

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Formidable campaign promise of Vladimir Putin - to introduce a tax on luxury - turned into a farce. Last Tuesday, the State Duma approved the first reading only amendments to the Tax Code to increase the rate of transport tax on cars more expensive than five million rubles. Russian voters waited quite different: a single tax on all items of personal overconsumption. According to Putin himself - "a huge house, huge plot of land, plane, or automobile superyachts". The president spoke about it twice: on the eve of elections to the Duma in December 2011 and on the eve of his election to the presidency in March 2012. It now appears that these words are of little worth.



No, of course, the owners of luxury cars now have to shell out more. The amendment, if the machine is from 5 million to 10 million rubles. and its age does not exceed five years, the current rate of vehicle tax will be doubled. For example, if it is the owner of the BMW 760Li in Moscow pays an annual tax of $ 81, 6 thousand rubles, after the adoption of the amendments will pay 163, 2000. Owner Ferrari California V8 -69 thousand, and 207 thousand rubles, respectively.



Another thing is that a tangible gain in the treasury of this collection will not. According to Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Shatalov, in Russia there are only 20-25 thousand supercars coming under "luxury" tax. "It's certainly not billions of rubles of additional revenues of regional budgets", - said Mr. Shatalov. And then he began to make excuses: "Our proposal is not so much fiscal as the social character of ...ยป



It turns out, the tax expensive cars need to promote - to show that the Kremlin was in favor of social justice. But while much more the reverse - have a propaganda effect scandals elite foreign real estate officials and parliamentarians.

For example, recently it was announced that former Senator Vitaly Malkin RF sued its American neighbor, moviemaker Sam Knapp. Knapp lives in Manhattan, a 72-floor skyscraper elite Time Warner Center. Above it, a two-story penthouse area of โ€‹โ€‹325 square meters. meters and cost 15 million dollars, lives, Mr. Malkin. This writes the American newspaper Daily News. The Court Knapp filed because Russian neighbor in the apartment for two years continues noisy construction robots - the apartment interior trims boutique Katselnik & Katselnik. However, he Malkin insists that the apartment is not his - it belongs to a trust, one of which is owned by his minor son Elian. If so - to the Russian law, it is pure as glass.



Clean before the law and United Russia, Vladimir Pekhtin, whose son, according to the blogger Alexei Navalny, owns apartments in a luxury complex Flamingo South Beach in Florida worth 540,000 dollars. Clean and First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, who in perpetual lease of a house in the Austrian area 1479 square meters. meters and an apartment of 424 square meters in a 10-year lease in the UK - he pointed to the property declarations of income for 2011. And none of them should be the money of the Russian treasury.



So, Putin at all desire can not impose a "luxury" tax castles, airplanes and yachts of his super-rich subjects. All these objects safely sheltered from the Russian fiscal authorities with the help of complicated ownership schemes. The real fight with the luxury possible unless directly prohibit civil servants to own foreign real estate, private yachts, planes, large jewels. But these "radical" measures the Kremlin does not want to go obviously. His hobby - playing populism.



- With a luxury tax authorities wanted to make a large-scale populist gesture towards the citizens - and could not afford it, - said a member of the Scientific Council of the Moscow Carnegie Center Nikolai Petrov. - This is a landmark moment. It shows that the current system works only on the basis of their own interests, and not even ready to sacrifice them in favor of Putin as a politician. As a result, the mountain gave birth to a mouse. Additional hundreds of millions of rubles that the regional budgets (especially Moscow) will increase the transport tax on expensive cars - quite small money on a national scale.



The amendments, rather, demonstrate impotence of power. So, even in a purely propaganda purposes it is able to make decisions that affect the interests of the wealthy in the first place - officials and MPs related to the business.

We are dealing here with a systemic problem - increasing legitimacy. Raise it through the elections of 2011-2012 failed, and the current state of the electoral system says that the upcoming elections are unlikely to raise the credibility of the government and the party in power. In such a situation is not a lot of ways in which legitimacy can be increased.



The first way - it's anti-corruption campaign. While it is likely, the Kremlin is in the negative. The campaign shows that the government is seriously corrupted, but no toughness and determination with respect to the corrupt does not show. From this, of course, the level of confidence grows.

The second method - a demonstration of commitment to social justice. Luxury tax could be purely populist support the legitimacy of the government, it shows that Putin plays on the side of the oligarchs and the security forces, and on the side of ordinary citizens. The tax could be a major propaganda trump card, but, as we see, he did not.



There remains a third way - a tough foreign policy rhetoric. But there are limited possibilities of the Kremlin. In fact, this resource is now fully operational, it has turned out, in my opinion, the damage to our country in the international arena.

But the most dangerous for the authorities is that it is active in all three directions, and the legitimacy of still reduced. Kremlin runs hard, we can see how bad and ineffective at it it turns out, but can not add legitimacy. This means any push - major technological catastrophe, scandal - could bring down the remains of the legitimacy of, and lead to the collapse of the current regime.



- The luxury tax would be necessary if we introduced a progressive income tax, as in most civilized countries, - said the deputy of the State Duma, the secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Leonid Kalashnikov. - As for the officials, Russia is enough to ratify Article 20 of the UN Convention on the fight against corruption, which recognizes the criminal act of illicit enrichment - and corruption in government will subside rapidly. It is in these areas need to act and not to reinvent the wheel with a luxury tax. This tax - from evil ...



- Putin, of course, the dictator, but the dictatorship is based on a fragile, - the leader of the National Democratic Party Konstantin Krylov. - It is now almost no one does not like - just because Putin is no longer able to give anything to citizens. But the beneficiaries of Putin's regime - the officials, security forces and business people who have a special relationship with the state - it can tolerate and endure long. It is the only base of Putin in the country, and the president of its highly valued. If so, the interests of this group do not have to suffer severely. Therefore, serious tax this group will not apply. A tax on luxury cars special interests of the beneficiaries are not prejudiced.



The current gesture - an increase of the transport tax - purely demonstrative. This is a reminder that Putin, in which case it may be undesirable to punish the boyars, he was still able to cause them serious trouble. It's as if Ivan the Terrible came to feasting boyars and his staff broke the plate of one of them. That is clearly shown that the need to keep yourself modest so as not to anger the strict king.



I think that ordinary citizens do not care what taxes will pay the rich. People would have been delighted if the rich anything away, and gave to the people. It probably would be a good attitude to the direct ban on luxury. But such gifts meaningless to expect from the Kremlin ...

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