Government says mulls amendments to cheap mortgage program

MOSCOW, Sep 5 (PRIME) -- The Russian government is discussing amendments to its cheap mortgage program, including an increase of the down payment to 20%, Ivan Chebeskov, director of the Finance Ministry’s financial policy department, told reporters on Tuesday.

“Regarding the amendments to the cheap mortgage program, we are actually discussing an increase of the down payment or the change of the so-called bank margin. This is a markup introduced to the formula used in calculations of a bank’s subsidies,” he said, adding that the down payment may be raised to 20%.

The government wants to amend the mechanism in the short term, but is also working on making the instrument more stable in the future, so that it doesn’t have to make amendments like these on the fly, he said.

Chebeskov also said that the ministry saw no sense in imposing an additional tax on foreign companies that would like to return to Russia.

“There will be no need to pay an additional tax while returning. They would just have to buy back their businesses, because them leaving means that they sold their businesses, and they will have to buy assets here at a market price. There is no (reason) to introduce any additional tax,” he said.

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