Dear Putin, the business community says the government is skirting your big ‘tax moratorium’

The heads of four business associations have addressed a complaint to President Putin, saying that Russians’ tax burden has become unmanageable.

In the letter, the business leaders claim that new “fees” in 2018 introduced by the government’s draft three-year plan will cost Russian entrepreneurs an extra 100 billion rubles ($1.7 billion) in 2018. The business associations argue that federal officials have imposed an array of “payments” and “fees” during a supposed tax moratorium instituted by Vladimir Putin in 2014.

The head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs says that the government’s three-year plan is likely too far along in the State Duma to remove the new “fees,” but it is still possible, he argues, to thwart the drafting of bylaws necessary to implement the taxes.

The third and final reading of the Russian federal government’s 2018 budget and 2019-2020 projected budgets will likely be passed on November 24. Next year’s budget plans a deficit of 1.3 trillion rubles ($21.8 billion).