|
Yesterday in the Interfax office Deputy Chairman of the Duma
Committee for Credit Institutions and Financial Markets, Igor
Artemyev, tried to answer the question "How can we compensate
for dollars lost after the fall in oil prices?".
Artemyev who in 1996 - 1999 was Deputy Governor of St. Petersburg,
thinks a simplified tax system and the transfer of state property
into concessions can compensate for the dollars lost on oil deals.
The YABLOKO faction of the State Duma has just finished work on
a concept for developing the small business sector and has submitted
it to the executive authorities. This concept implies that a single
tax amounting to 6% of proceeds will be introduced for small businesses
(tfederal and regional budgets will receive 50% each).
The second method for increasing budget revenues is more debatable.
This involves concessions, i.e. the transfer of state property
to investors into long-term lease. According to Igor Artemyev,
there are thousands of unitary enterprises in Russia. They hold
on deposit 1 bln roubles annually, but only 500 million roubles
are remitted as taxes to the state treasury. Artemyev wants to
introduce a tender with stringent requirements for the right to
manage this property. For example, the state leases a railway
for 100 years, and the investor should build a new one within
this period; control over investor's actions should be constant
here. Consequently, according to the Duma deputy, the enterprises
will be managed better, and the budget will receive the money
and the state will not lose its property.
However, such a scheme looks somewhat utopian: another person's
property still belongs to another person and consequently will
be subject to worse treatment than one's own, even if this property
is received under concession. Simple privatisation, an issue which
is not favoured by YABLOKO, would be far more reliable here.
See also:
Concessions
in Russia/General
Development
of small-scale business
Alians Media. The
YABLOKO party will submit to the President of the Russian Federation
its concept of support for small businesses. March 7, 2002.
How to Manage State Property?
"Ekonomika Rossiyi. 21 vek" * No 1(6), March 2002.
(Grigory Yavlinsky, head of the YABLOKO faction of the State Duma
of the Russian Federation)
| 