The Ministry of Finance of Belarus believes that the state may lose a significant part of its income after the completion of a “tax maneuver” in the oil sector in Russia. The total amount of losses may exceed $ 2 billion, which is about 20% of the revenues of the republican budget in 2018.
“We understand the real risks of significant budget revenue losses that may occur in the next 3-5 years, and we are calculating the ways to minimize them. The most ambitious of these challenges are the following: the completion of a “tax maneuver” by Russia with the refusal to levy export customs duties on oil and oil products,” the article by Deputy Finance Minister of Belarus Dzmitry Kiyko said.
Russia undertook the tax maneuver in 2015. It provided for a gradual zeroing of export duties on oil and an increase in the tax on the extraction of natural resources. The tax maneuver is not in the interests of the Belarusian budget, since it entails an increase in the price of oil for Belarus. This will result in the Belarusian refineries receiving raw materials at world prices and losing their advantages over competitors outside the EEA.
belsat.eu, Interfax.by
