Illegal trade in tobacco and nicotine-containing products is of increasing concern to representatives of federal and regional authorities.
Judging by the statistics announced at SPIEF-2024, the federal budget annually loses more than 1.3 trillion rubles due to underpaid taxes and excise taxes — and the lion's share of counterfeit products comes from tobacco products. How to reverse this negative trend?
One of the ideas actively discussed at the federal level is to provide the authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation with additional powers and resources. In particular, to transfer part of the excise taxes from the sale of tobacco products to regional budgets. Currently, 100% of excise taxes go to the federal budget — and the regions do not have a clear economic incentive to combat “gray” retail.
Representatives of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation welcome this idea. In a conversation with a correspondent of the Abireg publication, the governor of the Voronezh region, Alexander Gusev, said: “The distribution of these excise taxes for the constituent entities of the Russian Federation can be established similarly to the procedure applied to excise taxes on strong alcoholic products, that is, according to standards calculated based on the volume of retail sales of tobacco products. The introduction of such a norm will have a positive impact on regional budget revenues.»
Earlier during the SPIEF, the governor of the Rostov region Vasily Golubev also publicly supported the initiative to allocate part of the revenue from tobacco excise taxes to the budgets of the regions of the Russian Federation.
According to the Voronezh governor, due to the actions of shadow producers and sellers, not only are payment receipts to the budget falling, but the threat to the health of citizens and the security of the country is also growing. Gusev believes that in the fight against “illegal immigrants” the size of administrative fines should be increased. But the governor considers warnings about unscheduled inspections to be an ineffective measure that only helps unscrupulous businessmen prepare for the visit of inspectors.