UPDATE: Official wants IT cos with no local data centers pay 1.2% revenue

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MOSCOW, Sep 2 (PRIME) -- Alexander Khinshtein, head of the information policy committee of Russia’s State Duma, the parliament’s lower house, has suggested obliging the IT companies that do not install data processing centers in the country to pay 1.2% of annual revenue in favor of bridging the digital divide, PRIME reported on Thursday.

“I’d like to suggest the following approach – to expand this non-tax deduction of 1.2% for the IT companies that have failed to install the data processing centers on the territory of the Russian Federation as the law rules,” Khinshtein said at a meeting of political party United Russia with the government.

The program of bridging the digital divide, which is in progress in the country’s regions, is underfinanced, and the money it gets – non-tax payments of connection operators of 1.2% – is not enough to meet all the needs, he said.

“The volume of traffic flowing to foreign companies without data processing centers, rises in Russia. These expenses are borne by our connection operators, the same Rostelecom. They do not build data processing centers, they save on expenses,” Khinshtein said.

Tax and other deductions for Russian IT companies are much higher abroad than those of foreign companies outside their countries, he added.

If Rostelecom expects the program of bridging the digital divide to be completed in up to 10 years under the current funding, the initiative would at least halve this timeframe, Khinshtein said.

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