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Russian budget lost record amount of taxes
Western sanctions are hitting Russian companies hard, cutting them off from sales markets and equipment purchasing channels. As a result, overdue debt to the budget has jumped to an all-time high.
In 2024, Russian companies faced major financial problems due to sanctions, as a result of which they did not have funds to pay taxes to the budget, the Moscow Times reported on Thursday, September 19, citing Rosstat statistics.
It should be noted that in the first half of the year, the volume of overdue debts of organizations to budgets at all levels increased 3.3 times and by the end of June it reached 176.2 billion rubles – a record level for all time of available statistics.
The tax default began in April, when the amount of overdue debts rose from 43.8 to 152.9 billion rubles. In May it increased by another 13.4 billion rubles to 166.3 billion, and in June it added another 10 billion rubles.
At the same time, resource companies, primarily oil and gas companies, became the main tax debtors, as shown by the statistics: at the end of June, the mining sector accounted for three-quarters of the total tax debt – 137.2 billion rubles, of which 132 billion were owed by oil and gas companies.
The second largest debtor was the manufacturing industry (8.9 billion rubles). The construction industry was slightly behind (7.5 billion rubles).
The publication notes that tax problems for businesses are increasing as revenues to be paid into the budget are rapidly declining and banks are massively blocking cross-border payments. In June, the balanced financial result of the economy (profits minus losses) fell fourfold on an annual basis – to 860 billion rubles. The coal industry became unprofitable (minus 7.1 billion rubles). Metallurgists lost 9% of their revenue in six months, oil refineries’ revenues fell by 22%, and retail companies lost more than 26% of their net profits.
Commodity exporters in general have begun to experience cash shortages, a source at a major Russian bank told Reuters in early September. According to him, exporters have taken out yuan loans from Russia to sell foreign currency on the exchange market, including to pay taxes. But “real income has declined due to the current complex payment chains – there is nothing to give to banks,” the banker complained.
The tightening of Western sanctions is creating more and more headaches for companies that are cut off from sales markets and equipment procurement channels. Only 2% of top managers at large companies did not notice the consequences of sanctions on their work, according to a survey by the Centre for Sustainable Development of the Skolkovo School of Management and the consulting firm Trust Technologies.
Only 7% of respondents from 102 large companies in 17 industries reported the benefits of sanctions. At the same time, 66% complained about the negative effects of the events of recent years and 22% rated them as extremely high.
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