Putin said he hoped the VAT change would be temporary.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on December 8 that raising VAT from 20% to 22% was a temporary solution that had to be adopted as the most direct and reliable tool.

"When colleagues and, by the way, the Central Bank supported it, and the Ministry of Finance decided that when choosing all the tools, it was still more honest, more direct and more reliable to simply accept this increase. Temporary, I hope, but the increase is significant," the head of state said.

He also drew attention to possible risks, noting that when discussing the tax increase, there was immediately a fear that part of the business would go into the shadows, which should not be allowed. He stressed that the main measures to "whitewash" the economy are planned for the end of 2026, while VAT will increase from the beginning of the year, so decisions must be made honestly and openly right now, taking into account the internal political calendar.

Lessons from penalties: business tax debts increased 1.5 times

What violations are most often committed by companies and why there is more control over citizens

On November 26, Associate Professor of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, Candidate of Economics Tatyana Selyutina reported that tax control over companies using illegal schemes in Russia will only increase. The economist noted that such processes are logical — they were influenced by the growth of taxpayers' performance indicators, the reasons related to the budget factor, as well as the development of technologies that have expanded the possibilities for detecting tax violations and shadow schemes.

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