UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 28, 2019. Eighteen Sverdlovsk Region’s residents submitted tax forms this year that indicate their income amounted to more than RUB 1 billion in 2018; this is 2.5 times more than during the last tax deadline, when the number of local billionaires was only eight, Deputy Head of Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Russia’s Federal Tax Service Lidia Isayeva announced at a press conference this week.

According to Isayeva, fourteen people on the list live in Yekaterinburg, while four of them live in Sverdlovsk Region. The highest annual income figure declared was RUB 70 billion.

Also, twelve locals declared the annual income in the RUB 500 million-RUB 1 billion bracket; 109 people declared the income in the RUB 100 million-RUB 500 million bracket; 884 people declared the income around RUB 100 million, and 29,000 people declared the income of more than RUB 1 million in the year 2018.

Isayeva explained most of these large incomes stemmed from liquidation of foreign enterprises where the applicants had a stake; dividends and the sale of a share in a foreign company’s authorized capital were two other primary sources.