PRESS: Russian operators, budget can lose huge money from new bill

MOSCOW, Jun 23 (PRIME) -- Russian connection operators and the budget could lose billions of rubles in case of adoption of antiterrorist amendments obliging operators and Internet companies to store content of users’ correspondence for up to six months, business daily Kommersant reported Thursday.

The initiative was earlier suggested by deputy Irina Yarovaya and senator Viktor Ozerov.

Mobile operator MTS estimated that its one-time expenses on the organization of storage of voice information and personal data traffic for half a year would reach 2.2 trillion rubles.

“In view of the fact that our taxable profit was at 22.5 billion rubles as of the end of 2015, and the profit tax was 4.5 billion rubles, with such expenses we would not be able to pay the corporate profit tax for some 100 years and the budget would fail to receive about 450 billion rubles,” MTS’ spokesperson Dmitry Solodovnikov said.

Mobile operator MegaFon calculated that spending on the creation of data processing centers would significantly exceed the company’s net profit.

“The company would be in a tax loss for five years, which would result in tax losses for the Russian budget to the tune of 10 billion rubles per year, or 50 billion rubles for five years. It’s difficult to weigh now operating expenses on maintenance of performance ability of equipment, but these would be also billions of rubles per year,” a MegaFon spokesperson said.

Mobile operator VimpelCom would be also forced not to pay the corporate profit tax for a long time.

“As a result, the budget would not receive 40 billion rubles of the profit tax during several years to come. Moreover, VimpelCom would need to recover the value-added tax paid when purchasing equipment, which would be up to 36 billion rubles. In total, the budget would lose from the part of VimpelCom 76 billion rubles, or about 30 billion rubles in the first year,” a spokesperson for the company told the daily.

The State Duma, the parliament’s lower house, can hear on Friday in the second and the third and final readings a package of antiterrorist amendments, including the clause on the six-month storage of content of users’ correspondence.

(63.7162 rubles – U.S. $1)

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