They will struggle with gray and black employment in Russia again. To begin with, they plan to create a registry of employers who do not properly register employees and strengthen control over self-employed through networking platforms. And then they threaten to take the unemployed with their housewives, shaking them properly to find out how they survived. The authorities are determined as always, but will it be possible to turn the tide? After all, the shadow sphere in our country has already become commonplace, it is difficult to even call it a part of the system as if it were the system itself.
Estimates of the volume of the informal economy in Russia differ: it ranges from 15% to 40% of GDP (Rosstat works with smaller figures, foreign studies show larger figures). In monetary terms, they usually talk about 10-20 trillion rubles a year. As for the dynamics, the gray sector is thought to have regressed until 2015 and then started to grow again. The IMF estimated the share of the shadow sector in Russia at 33.7% in 2018; this is less than in Belarus (44.5%) and Georgia (53%), but more and significantly more than in Italy (23%), for example in the USA and Germany (7% vs. 7.7). And even without comparison, we can safely say that a very large part of the markets in Russia have gone dark. And there is absolutely nothing good in that.
Actually, why so many? We are not that wild. The main circulation of money in the economy has long been electronic, and this should seem to contribute to the laundering of various fields – after all, everything is under the hood. The dynamics of legalizing private traders through self-employment also seem to point to positive changes. Every year, the number of self-employed people doubles on average: in 2020 it was only 1.6 million, in 2021 – already 3.5 million, and in 2022 it was 6.5 million.
Despite this, they say that the number of unconscious citizens is still too high. Let’s just say we still have in mind all kinds of mechanics, teachers and nannies working without a contract, getting paid cash, paying no taxes and sleeping – just imagine! – quite calm, sleep well. This irresponsible type of person is common even among hired employees, they say, where people specifically seek such conditions to get paid in envelopes, denying regular vacations and sick days just to piss off the government. Surprising explanations. Of course, it is worth considering in more detail.
Let’s start with the freelancer. In fact, it’s true that most self-employed people don’t try to pay taxes. And 4% is not a pity. It is not a pity, but many believe that this percentage will not increase, that self-employment is not a trap. Also, many do not understand what to pay the government for. Appealing to civil liability, talking about roads, facilities, schools, hospitals, for the self-employed, for example, politics, is useless, although they are completely exempt from paying contributions to MHIF.
In response, they just shrug: the quality of medicine is known, you still go on a paid appointment, education also declines every year. Then, in addition to income taxes, there are many indirect taxes – the same transport tax, environmental fees, VAT. And the state also pumps oil and gas, so let it use that money to deal with landscaping, security and social policy, not just for the hard workers.
Such logic. You may disagree with it, or even condemn it, but it exists and reliably protects employees from the desire to download the Vergim app. And it makes more sense to talk about a crisis of confidence. The state needs to try to convince the people who make a living for it successfully that they owe it something.
Wait, why is the percentage of officially registered self-employed people increasing? Paradoxically, it is not the self-sufficient employees that drive growth, but the ones whose employment is very similar to hired employment and who do not seek customers for themselves, but take advantage of the opportunities created by the institutions.
We’re talking about victims of the platform economy. Yes, victims. After all, tax situations are not their own decision, but a necessary measure, a necessary condition for receiving an order. Most of these precariats happily formalize their relationship with their employer with a standard contract, but unfortunately, the employer is on the way to cutting costs. Unfortunate couriers and taxi drivers occasionally go on strike demanding safety and social security, but they seem unlikely to meet such demands.
But what about citizens who allegedly choose gray salaries themselves? The authorities assure that there are so many of them that there is no way out with them. They say there is no way to fight human greed. With greed, it would seem, the exchange of social guarantees for a ridiculous 20-30% increase in wages, that is, ordinary stupidity is understood. But there are few real idiots, and people again accept an official in the form of a minimum wage and the rest in an envelope out of desperation. When the choice is made between a white salary of 30 thousand rubles and a gray salary of 40, and a person has only 20 thousand loan obligations, then there is no need to talk about some kind of conscious, balanced decision.
Here questions should be directed to employers who offer such a fork to applicants. But for some reason employers are not asked. They even hurt. Ah, they’re fed up with bureaucracy and taxes, they’ll go bankrupt if they don’t run away. All right, let them go bankrupt. They don’t know how to run a business without scamming employees, let them be the concierge – everything is fine. Moreover, it seems that we do not have enough concierges: as soon as a little snow falls on the country, collapse immediately.
By the way, there are also people who want a gray salary. There are few of them, and all are distinguished by their unwillingness to take responsibility for their financial obligations. We are talking about malicious borrowers for loans and alimony. However, these comrades should generally be under the special control of the FSSP. And of course, it is not difficult at all to compare the small civil servant salaries of these entrepreneurs with their own expenditures in terms of public services. And, by the way, if the bailiffs and employees of other supervisory authorities really worked, then the business would not be in a hurry to meet such deviators. Who wants to come under distribution for someone else’s greed?
In general, however you look at it, it turns out that all the tools are there to bring order to the labor market. You just need to set a goal. But for some reason the state does not catch rats, and everything is threatened with only one paw. And even then, not to the mice, but to their own blind kittens. Kittens squeak, they want to eat, at the same time, rats are housed during the day, which are not afraid of anything and anyone, and therefore the state writes them in the register and thinks about what to do. they’re next.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.