In discussions with RIA Novosti, Alexander Shokhin, president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, noted an agreement among Russian business leaders and government officials on a one-time mandatory contribution to the state budget. He added that while consensus exists on making this payment compulsory, there is still no clear method for calculating the lump sum or the exact parameters that will govern it.
Shokhin described the arrangement as a mandatory, windfall-like levy that would resemble a tax, but with different mechanics. He argued that the measure could create favorable operating conditions for Russian enterprises and enable many sectors to report stronger financial results in 2022 and 2021 compared with the preceding years, due to a unique confluence of factors. He further emphasized that the critical question remained unresolved: how to quantify this supposed “super profit” that might not be as straightforward as it appears.
Reporting from the February 8 edition of Vedomosti indicated that the government was proposing large corporations to contribute voluntarily to the budget. Andrey Belousov, the first deputy prime minister, stated that such a contribution was a topic of discussion and would take the form of a one-time payment. Citing a source within the publication, the article suggested the voluntary budget contribution could reach around 250 billion rubles.
Later, on February 21, the Russian Finance Ministry announced that the contribution would indeed be a one-time payment within 2023. The official confirmation underscored the government’s intention to implement a single, non-recurrent fiscal measure designed to bolster the budget in the near term, while leaving open questions about how the amount would be determined and applied across different business sectors.