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VAT Collection Negative on Paper
Although negative tax collection is an oxymoron, it occasionally happens. The Federal Tax Service published data on value-added tax collection for January and February, which amounted 136.3 billion rubles. The tax service published a cumulative total for domestic VAT collection. The officially stated amount of VAT collection in January was 173.3 billion rubles. The fact that the tax collected in one month was greater than in two months combined indicated that the tax service did not collect any taxes in February, but rather refunded them, to the tune of 37 billion rubles, that is, about ˆ1 billion.
Of course, nothing of the kind actually happened. The tax service did not receive any VAT in January or February, since it was not collecting it. VAT collection in March should be negative as well. The January data on VAT collection consists of transfers mainly made in December and reflects yearend closures by companies. With the conversion to quarterly VAT payment, the next positive VAT indicator will be in April. Refunds of VAT are proceeding under the old schedule. It was not possible to indicate them in the January data, but they showed up in February and created a negative total.
The new model for domestic VAT collection will cause one more glitch in the statistic this year, and a major one – a shortfall of more than 25 percent of forecasted collection for the year. The last VAT payment for the year will be in September. VAT for October through December 2008 will be paid in the second half of January 2009, and it will be larger than the April, July and September payments. Like the negative VAT indicator for February, those data will not reflect the real situation.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 26, 2008
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Photo: Dmitry Saltykovsky
