Page 10 - RusRPTJun20

war of the past, and we are ready for it, we are now facing a challenge of a completely different scale,” he said.
The ministry sees the average oil price of about $30 in 2020, he said.
Participation of the US in the OPEC+ deal is a key factor for success. Even if Russia and the OPEC states had made a deal in March, the countries still would have to revise it as demand for oil and oil products plummeted due to the coronavirus pandemic, he said.
TAXES, PREFERENCES
A damping mechanism, or a reverse oil excise compensating growth of prices for raw materials for the oil refining sector has paid off, oil companies are not asking for any changes, Siluanov said.
“We introduced the mechanism during high prices, and we couldn’t spare money from the National Wealth Fund for them. But the situation has reversed now, and everything is fair. We had to think about the future and prepare for different times during high oil prices. Oil companies have not asked us to revise the damping mechanism,” he said.
He also said that new oil tax preferences are irrelevant now due to the OPEC+ oil output reduction deal.
“Speaking of preferences, Russia decided to reduce oil production together with OPEC+ and new preferences that would be necessary to raise it have become irrelevant. It would be strange to speak about additional preferences now,” he said, adding that all tax preferences should be based on investment obligations.
“If you get 100 rubles of preferences, please send it to investment instead of dividends,” he said.
The government is not discussing any proposals to raise or cut taxes safe introduction of the tax on income from large deposits with banks. He said that a write-off of debts is not the best way to create incentives for businesses during the pandemic.
“We can restructure debts, including tax arrears. We are discussing measures to help businessmen minimize the burden of circumstances that they will have accumulated by the date they end the downtime. We are not discussing a decrease of taxes, we are discussing a tax stimulus that would allow them to improve activity. We plan no serious changes in taxes,” he said.
He also said that the state-controlled companies should pay at least 50% of their net profit calculated under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in dividends. The companies are allowed to delay dividends, but the government’s position on the dividend amount did not change, he said.
The government also does not think that direct distribution of money to the Russians during the coronavirus pandemic is a good thing. Russia would have done it if the ruble were a global reserve currency, but now it has to support those who need it most. It has to support businesses and help them keep their employees, it has to help people to cover priority spending, or their spending
10​ RUSSIA Country Report​ June 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com