Russian IT Minister Urges Cut In Tax On Software Sector
by Tatiana Smolenskaya, Tax-News.com, Moscow
22 November 2004

Russia’s Minister for Information Technology, Leonid Reiman has urged the government to lower tax on software developers to boost investment in the sector and reduce the size of the ‘grey economy’.

In a government meeting last week, Reiman reportedly noted that much of the software development sector remained in the grey economy, and argued that income and social taxes should be reduced for software firms to encourage them to legalize themselves.

According to Reiman, export of illegal software makes up 30% of Russia’s $500 million software export total.

He also argued for a cut in the 20% import levy on hardware components to stimulate computer assembly in Russia, observing that import tax for manufactured PCs is only 5%.

However, Reiman’s ideas do not appear to have found support from within the government, and deputy finance minister Tatiana Golikova revealed later that no room can be found in the budget for further tax cuts.

A comprehensive report describing the stage of development of e-commerce in most major offshore jurisdictions, including the legislative regime, is available in the Tax News Reports Shop at http://www.tax-news.com/reportshop/