In late August, Valery Ryazansky, Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Social Policy, presented a draft bill to the State Duma. It requires amendments to the Tax Code, according to which employers will have a right to unpledged expenses for payments for visits and recreation for their employees and members of their families.
However, these benefits touch on only expenses for recreation in Russia, and prices for tourism services should not exceed 50 thousand rubles per person. The revenues lost to the budget are compensated by income from organizations of the tourism industry and similar industries due to extension of demand for internal tourism.
Ryazansky explained that “the idea of state involvement in encouraging tourism, tourist visits and recreational tours is not a new one. For the first time I faced with this idea, when I was working in the tourism industry, in 1995-1996. The Central Council for Tourism and Excursions, one of the major operators that organized health tourism above all, had 132,000 placements during Soviet times. Intourist and Sputnik were smaller. This idea of socialization of tourism, the idea of the state and employer’s participation, was crystallizing for a long time.”
The senator drew attention to the report ‘On the Development of Tourism in the Russian Federation’, which was presented at the recent State Council Presidium, and there it is written that the modern conditions of tourism have become an engine of social and economic development of entire countries. Tourism in Russia, of course, must have a social dimension. Together with representatives of the Federal Tourism Agency, we initiated a preparation of financial and economic feasibility. And this was the main obstacle to the realization of this idea. We have prepared a feasibility study, which gives the right, I emphasize, not an obligation, but the right of employers to include in the production cost of the expenses, which it sends to the tourism, health tourism, recreation of their employees, their family members on the relevant list within the overall limits that exist in the Tax Code.”
Speaking about a mechanism of tax reliefs, according to Ryazansky, “we have only managed to defend the idea of the employer’s right to reduce his taxable profit, because it is a federal authority. In regions, the matter is more complicated, because here we are talking about some of the losses of local budgets, municipal budgets, because the regions that receive more tourists will benefit. The regions that receive fewer tourists will lose. In this regard, there is a need for a balance of interests, so that on the one hand, the regions are not affected, on the other hand, this figure should motivate the regions to develop their inner tourism and recreational potential.”
