In Russia, We Pay Income Tax Like in the East
The United Arab Emirates, Russia and Hong Kong are the states with the minimal income tax for individuals, Mercer concluded past week in its tax policy outlook. The United States and Britain are in the middle, and the people of Hungary, Denmark and Belgium suffer from the heaviest tax burden, yielding roughly a half of their income to the state.
But for Russia, the states in Europe are outside the Top 10 of the list. Formally, the tax regimes are most attractive for individuals in Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and China).
Russia rates the second in the list of the most attractive tax regimes. One of the reasons is that Mercer matched the tax rates in their extended form with regard to obligatory social insurance payments, which are deducted from salaries in the better part of the countries.
Russia stands somewhat apart. Here, social costs of the state (pensions, medical service, etc.) are funded for account of the Unified Social Tax and insurance payments settled by employers instead of employees. The tricky point is that the management takes money from the labor compensation fund. Therefore, the real burden on a salary of a worker would be not 13 percent but about 40 percent should the 26 percent of the Unified Social Tax be added to the overall amount. So, taking into account the Unified Social Tax would move Russia to the lower section of the list.
Another peculiarity of the income tax in Russia is the equal efficient rates for unmarried and married individuals. In Britain, for instance, the rates for single taxpayers stand at 29.4 percent, while the couples with two children pay just 20.9 percent. Germany has 45.7 percent and 30.5 percent respectively.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 26, 2007
|
