“Out of the 2.6 million companies registered in Russia today, about one third do not pay taxes at all, and the rest don’t pay them in full,” the Russian official told the Interfax agency.

According to Mr Kolesnikov it has become popular among businesses to "optimize their spending,” which means that they strive to cut their tax and social security contributions.

Mr Kolesnikov commented that tax evasion was most prevalent among companies in the oil industry, and he remarked that: “it often seems as if millions of tons of oil and billions of dollars were handled by a bunch of invalids who have never seen them."