MOSCOW, February 26 (RIA Novosti) – Every tenth Russian company making settlements through the Central Bank’s payment system dodged tax payments in 2012, according to data posted on the regulator’s website on Tuesday.
Central Bank figures show 242,000 companies or about 11 percent of the 2.2 million businesses surveyed by the regulator made zero tax payments last year, despite conducting operations through the Central Bank’s payment system. As many as 64,000 of those businesses had a turnover of over 1 million rubles (around $33,000) last year in the regulator’s payment system, but paid no taxes on those transactions.
The Central Bank’s statistics help identify shell companies which deprive Russia’s budget of up to 1 trillion rubles ($33 billion) annually, according to Russian government estimates.
Russian Central Bank chief Sergei Ignatyev said last week there were 3.9 million businesses registered by Russia’s Federal Tax Service, compared with just 2 million organizations that really existed.
“Also, our analysis shows that more than half of all dubious operations are made by firms directly or indirectly bound by payment relations with each other. The impression is created that all of them are controlled by one well-organized group of people. If the law-enforcement agencies concentrate their efforts considerably, they will be able to identify these people and also the beneficiaries of these operations,” Ignatyev said then.
