Page 52 - RUSRptOct18

RUB2.45 trillion this year, or 2.4% of GDP.
In January-June Urals blend oil price averaged to $69.73. Previously in May the ministry already suggested that the surplus in 2018 could be in the range of 0.5% to 2% of GDP.
In January-June budget revenues amounted to RUB12.22 trillion or 71.6% of the annual target, while expenditures stood at RUB10.26 trillion or 59.6%.
Sanctions pressure could force the government to reserve the considerable part of fiscal surpluses to deal with possible contagion. In September the Finance Ministry representatives said they would be ready to take emergency measures and buy out its own ruble debt should possible US sanctions proceed to the "nuclear option" and target country's sovereign borrowings.
Russian ruble and OFZ federal bonds have been under heavy pressure since August as the sanction tensions reached new peaks. Net capital outflow from Russia in January-August 2018 already jumped 2.8-fold year-on-year to $26.5bn , according to the data from the Central Bank of Russia (CBR). In August alone net capital outflow amounted to $5bn, as compared to July's data.
6.1.1 Budget dynamics - specific issues...
Since the beginning of the year, tax authorities have removed more than 330,000 companies from the federal business register as it cracks down on tax scams and added to it 250,000 entries about the unreliability of data on companies, the Federal Tax Service reported on September 24. In particular it is targeting the “fly by night” companies that are registered to take a tax liability and then closed just before the tax payment comes due. In 2016 a total of 1.5mn companies were excluded from the register, and 800,000 organizations were notified about the unreliability of their information. As of September 10, 5.9mn companies were registered in Russia. But a business can be excluded from the register, if, after the tax authorities' appeal, they do not correct the information about themselves within six months. There are a dozen indicators to check whether the company is real, most of it is related to the place of
52 RUSSIA Country Report October 2018 www.intellinews.com