Russia's economy has received almost nothing from high oil prices, as all the income was evened by a net capital outflow, which was intensified as a result of the fear of new sanctions, Chief Economist of VEB development bank Andrei Klepach is confident.
"Almost the entire gain between the current prices of almost $70 per barrel and those oriented at the beginning of the year - more than $50, was offset by net outflows," PRIME cited Klepach as saying.
A leading analyst of the National Energy Security Fund, a lecturer at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, Igor Yushkov, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that the decline in the share of oil and gas revenues in the country's economy is explained by the decline in taxes on the industry, including the mineral extraction tax and export duties. "If the state starts receiving more revenues from non-oil sectors, it could mean that taxes on these sectors have increased, providing the budget with higher revenues from them. As a result, this policy of reorienting to the non-oil sector increases the tax burden on the non-oil business," he drew attention.
At the same time, increased taxes on oil would help to keep more revenues from high oil prices, thereby slowing capital outflows. "Now it turns out that the state began to take more money from non-oil sectors, slowing down the overall growth of the economy. In such circumstances, the question arises whether it would not be better to reduce the tax burden on this business by raising taxes on the oil industry, while oil prices are high and oil producers have significant incomes," Igor Yushkov pointed out.
A senior analyst of 'Uralsib', Alexei Kokin, in turn, stressed that over the past 15 years, no radical approaches to the oil taxation have appeared. "The tax maneuver is rather some transfer of taxation from some oil industry subsectors to others. In the future, perhaps the government’s efforts to contain domestic prices will be a serious supportive measure for the non-oil sector as a consumer of petroleum products - but for the time being it is difficult to speak of state policy's negative influence on the oil industry," he said.
"The situation in the oil industry has not become worse compared to the era of higher duties. I don’t see any fundamental progress towards a serious increase in the tax burden on oil in recent years. I don’t think that they try to the oil industry take a lot of money from the oil industry through taxes to support other industries. The only remark: the government now demands higher dividends, dividend payout rates have increased almost everywhere to 50%. But these are demands for higher payments, which are designed to stimulate the efficiency of oil companies," Alexey Kokin added.
According to the Russian Central Bank, the Russian Federation saw a net capital outflow of $42.2 billion in January-October 2018, which is three times higher of the same period a year earlier.
