The State Duma has passed the second reading of the bill on fine-tuning the tax system in the sphere of domestic tourism
The lower house of parliament passed the second reading of amendments to the bill, which should amend the Tax Code of the Russian Federation (TC RF). The main star of the meeting was the head of the State Duma Committee on Budget and Taxes, Andrei Makarov. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov also attended the discussion. The key topics of parliamentary discussions are a possible change in the differentiated personal income tax scale, its more “accurate”, according to a number of parliamentarians, additional adjustments, the emergence of a new tourist tax and a number of innovations in the field of business taxation.
By the second reading of the bill to amend the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, only 225 amendments were received from 79 subjects of legislative initiative. Deputies generally unconditionally supported the government amendment introducing a new type of tax — tourism. From January 1, 2025, it will replace the resort fee, which was introduced in a number of regions as an experiment six years ago. This tax will not be federal, but regional. It will be introduced and terminated by regulatory legal acts of local representative bodies of municipalities. Technically, it will be different from the resort fee: it will not be paid by tourists, but by hotels, inns and other accommodations for travelers. The tax rate will vary depending on seasonality and the category of accommodation facility, but cannot be higher or lower than the values established by the Tax Code. The maximum tax rate in 2025 will be 1% of the price of a hotel, inn or other accommodation. Then it will increase every year by 1% until 2029 inclusive, but after that it will not exceed 5%. At the same time, the lower limit of the tax is set at 100 rubles per day. Such a tax will need to be paid once a quarter, and this must be done by organizations and individual landlords who provide places for temporary residence of tourists — hotels, inns or private apartment owners who rent them out to tourists, for example, on a daily basis. At the same time, you will not have to pay tax for accommodation of privileged categories of citizens. These include heroes of the USSR and Russia, participants in the Great Patriotic War and Northern Military District, combat veterans, disabled people, etc.
Another innovation in the Tax Code, which was adopted by the State Duma in the second reading, concerned a gradual increase in the threshold for applying the simplified taxation system (STS). The document was also initiated by the Russian government. Thanks to the adopted amendments, taxpayers using the simplified tax system with incomes of less than 60 million rubles will be exempt from VAT. This will be done automatically. Companies will not have to submit any additional applications.
But it is curious that a significant share of the discussions during the second reading of the bill on amending the Tax Code of the Russian Federation was devoted to the differentiated scale of personal income tax. In particular, the deputies approved an amendment introduced by State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, which exempts wage supplements from increased personal income tax for workers in the Far North and similar areas with unfavorable conditions. As a result, the so-called northern surcharges are set at 13% and 15% for amounts over 5 million rubles.
The progressive personal income tax scale caused a lot of discussion among deputies. What kind of changes, mostly related to taxation of the rich and super-rich, were not proposed by the deputies. However, in the end, a scale was adopted, initiated by the government and providing for the following tax rates:
- citizens with incomes up to 2.4 million rubles per year will need to pay 13% personal income tax;
- from 2.4 million to 5 million rubles the rate will be 15%;
- from 5 million to 20 million rubles — 18%;
- from 20 million to 50 million rubles — 20%;
- more than 50 million rubles per year — 22%.
The increased tax rate will be accrued only after the corresponding thresholds in a citizen’s salary are exceeded.
Another adopted amendment provides that working parents in families with two or more children with an income of no more than 1.5 times the minimum subsistence level per month will be compensated for part of the personal income tax paid. Low-income families will be able to reduce the personal income tax rate from 13% to 6%. The amendments stipulate that when assigning payments, the presence of children in families under 18 years of age or under 23 years of age if they are studying full-time at a university will be taken into account.
Now the approved amendments await the third reading, which is scheduled for the morning of July 10.