MOSCOW, August 5 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian government collected $46.64 billion in tax revenue in the first half of 2005, Federal Tax Chief Anatoli Serdyukov said Friday.
Serdyukov said that tax revenue exceeded the expected figure by about $8.36 billion.
The largest contributions came from profit tax ($1.2 billon), VAT ($2.7 billion) and natural resources tax ($4.3 billion), Serdyukov reported.
The rise in the price of oil accounted for about 50% of the extra revenue. Stricter monitoring of large tax contributors by the Federal Tax Service was also a contributing factor, he said.
After investigations into embattled oil company Yukos uncovered numerous wrongdoings, "almost all oil companies have tidied up their tax figures and have started paying substantially more," he said.
Last year's tax revenue was two and a half times higher than the previous year's, so far sustained.
