The proposed 15 percent tax on dividends and interest taken out of Russia will give the country's budget at least 70 billion rubles ($890 million) this year, Olga Lebedinskaya, associate professor of the Plekhanov Russian Academy of Economics, told Sputnik on Tuesday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th March, 2020) The proposed 15 percent tax on dividends and interest taken out of Russia will give the country's budget at least 70 billion rubles ($890 million) this year, Olga Lebedinskaya, associate professor of the Plekhanov Russian Academy of Economics, told Sputnik on Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed the tax as part of measures to fill up the budget to finance social measures to support citizens and businesses in connection with the coronavirus outbreak. The president noted that Moscow was ready to unilaterally withdraw from agreements on avoiding double taxation with countries that disagree with such measures.
"The increase in the rate should give at least 70 billion rubles," Lebedinskaya said.
The rates in 2019 were 15 percent for non-residents and 13 percent for residents, she added.
However, Putin noted in his speech that most of transfers used loopholes and schemes allowing to reduce the tax rate to just 2 percent.
Net capital outflow from Russia amounted to 26.7 billion rubles last year, down from 63 billion rubles in 2018, the country's central bank said in January.
According to the bank's latest available official statistics, the top five destinations for transfers of individuals from Russia in January-September 2019 were Switzerland � $1.31 billion, Uzbekistan � $818 million, the United Kingdom � $572 million, the United States � $572 million, and Latvia � $535 million. They were followed by Tajikistan ($462 million), Kyrgyzstan ($453 million), Spain ($274 million), Germany ($256 million) and Cyprus ($250 million).
However, transfers to the former Soviet republics of Central Asia mostly relate to transfers by migrant workers supporting their families and have nothing to do with interest or dividends.
