OREANDA-NEWS. November 21, 2008. The RF government will reconsider possible changes in a number of key taxes in April 2009, First Vice PM Igor Shuvalov said Thursday. "In April we will reconsider" the tax situation and will be able to adopt new decisions’ – said Shuvalov. He did not rule out that, in particular, the issue of lowering VAT rate will be discussed.

Shuvalov also noted that the tax innovations voiced by Vladimir Putin on Thursday, such as reducing income tax, taxes for small-sized business, a 30% increase in depreciation premium and higher tax refund for housing purchase, made it possible to balance most of the tax burden which emerged as a result of replacing the uniform social tax (UST) with insurance payments. Specifically, federal budget revenue which dropped out due to a 20% reduction in income tax will reach RUB 400 bn in 2009, or 0.78% of GDP, from cutting small business tax will amount to RUB 13 bn, from increasing the depreciation premium will total RUB 100 bn and hiking tax refund from buying residential real estate should be about RUB 44 bn. Thus, the aggregate effect for the 2009 budget will reach RUB 556 bn, or 1.1% of GDP. In turn, the effect of replacing UST with insurance payments for the budget amounts to 1.7% of GDP. "Thus, we have resolved the issue (offsetting the rise in UST) by more than 50%" – Shuvalov summed up.