OREANDA-NEWS. April 7, 2009. The tax burden for businesses will be raised marginally due to the replacement of the Unified Social Tax (UST) with social security contributions and the rejection of the UST regressive scale, vice PM and finance minister Alexey Kudrin noted. “On the whole, this hike will be marginal, but (entrepreneurs) will feel its influence,” he said.

Kudrin pointed out that wages are different in various sectors of the economy. Therefore for some concerns the shift to social security contributions to be paid on annual earnings not exceeding RUB 415,000 a year will be more noticeable and less tangible for some other businesses. Kudrin also said that starting 2010 social security contributions will be mainly administered by the Pension Fund of Russia.

According to him, what authority is to administer social security and medical insurance contributions is still under discussion. “But, overall, mainly the Pension Fund is to play the role (of administering social security contributions),” the finance minister said.