UPDATE: Report: Official: Metals producers must return 100 bln rbl as taxes

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MOSCOW, May 31 (PRIME) -- Russian metals producers have received around 100 billion rubles of windfall income in 2020 and will have to return the funds to the budget as taxes, First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov said in an interview with RBC television channel on Monday.

“We have calculated that… metals producers have duped us, the government and the budget, in terms of state investment and state defense orders by around 100 billion rubles in the year. They must return the funds in the form of taxes, I think,” Belousov said.

Belousov did not name the companies but said that the prices on the local market increased in line with the global ones amid the pandemic allowing them to receive windfall income.

“I will not name the companies now and how much they earned. But I can say that metals producers’ revenues… multiplied in the COVID year. It is not bad, and the fact that they pay dividends is not bad, but it is bad that they raised the prices on the local market in line with the global prices,” he said.

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that President Vladimir Putin is aware of the metal producers’ windfall income, and the government is presently considering the issue.

Peskov added that no one should be blamed in the situation.

“One should not look for somebody to blame. It is an economic life. Business earns money, and the state receives taxes. If there is any disproportion, the state evens it up,” he said.

(73.5870 rubles – U.S. $1)

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