Social taxes on businesses frozen till 2011 - Putin

MOSCOW. April 6. KAZINFORM The Russian government has turned an attentive ear to the businesses? requests to decide against any rises of social taxes on private enterprises till 2011 and to postpone the reform of the Unified Social Tax for two years, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told the State Duma, as he presented his Cabinet?s report for 2008; Kazinform refers to ITAR-TASS.

?In the course of the discussion of the anti-crisis program with the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs the employers asked for a postponement of greater fiscal pressures for one year,? he said. ?I believe that it is possible to respond to the business community?s request and, despite the transition to insurance principle, to refrain from raising the rate until January 1 2011. For ensuring the pension rights of citizens the scale of insurance deductions should be changed in 2010 from the existing three-stage one to a flat one and to charge insurance payments from the maximum annual income sum of up to 415,000 rubles.? Putin said the transition to such a system would be absolutely justified, because that scale had undergone no indexing for years; Kazinform cites ITAR-TASS. Full version you can see at www.itar-tass.com