UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 8, 2019. Sverdlovsk Region’s budget received RUB 144.8bn in tax and non-tax payments (both of which got processed with the fiscal authorities) between January and September 2019, which was 1.2%, or RUB 1.7bn, less than one year earlier, Russia’s Federal Tax Service’s local division’s press service reports.

‘The decrease in budget revenues has to do with shrinking corporate property tax payments (-RUB 6.4bn/down by 1.4 times) and reduced excise duty payments on goods manufactured within the Russian Federation (-RUB 1.8bn/ down by 1.8 times),’ the press service says.

Companies paid less corporate property tax due to changes in the movable asset taxation rules: the property tax on movable assets only came to 1.1% for the year 2018 and to 0% starting January 1, 2019.

‘The overall amount of excise duty payments went down due to Sverdlovsk Region’s Executive Order 131 OZ (dated November 14, 2018) coming into effect on January 1, 2019; under the terms of the order, 50% of excise duty payments on Russia-made beer have to get transferred from Sverdlovsk Region’s budget to local towns’ budgets. Now in 2018, no revenues got redirected to local budgets,’ the Federal Tax Service explains.