The practice of levying from Russian enterprises and organizations such fees as trade and resort fees did not teach the authors of such legislation anything. And the innovation of 2021 in the Russian tax legislation was a tax called "humanitarian".
The collection of the humanitarian tax in Russia is enshrined in the new chapter 25.1.1 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation and applies to all distributors of advertising. These include (in accordance with clause 7 of Art. 3 38-FZ of 13.03. 2006) persons who distribute advertising "in any way, in any form and using any means." Starting from 01.01.2021, each taxpayer in this service sector is obliged to calculate 5% of advertising income on a quarterly basis and no later than the 25th day of the month following the reporting quarter, pay this amount to the budget.
Who and how came up with this type of payment
The author of the bill number 979423-7 is the LDPR deputy Sergei Ivanov. Discussing it in the State Duma, he emphasized that the name reflects the target orientation of the collection - to help seriously ill people in difficult life situations: when the state cannot provide a person with expensive treatment that he needs.
The initiators of the collection of payments from advertising distributors were guided by the following:
- According to experts from the Association of Communication Agencies of the Russian Federation, the total volume of advertising in the means of its distribution is more than 480 billion rubles a year. The annual amount of deductions of 24 billion in the Russian budget is not superfluous.
- The attention of the authors of the idea was attracted by the advertising activities of top YouTube bloggers, owners of popular sites and groups in social networks, whose income is often far from taxation.
- The 5% rate is not taken arbitrarily, but proceeding from the following. It is this share of the airtime (as well as the printed space, and outdoor structures, etc.), according to the current regulations, should be reserved for social advertising. Production and distribution of "social", as prescribed by Art. 10 of Law 38-FZ, should be carried out through the procurement of works and services under the contractual system in the field of procurement to meet state and municipal needs. But such advertising materials are "extremely rare on television, radio, print and on the Internet" (quote from the explanatory note to the project). Therefore, it was decided to achieve the law-abidingness of advertising distributors in a different way - by imposing a mandatory 5% tax on income from their services.
It should be noted that the LDPR initiative was not supported by the government. There are two reasons:
- Strictly speaking, this payment does not correspond to the tax concept of collection. In clause 2 of article 8 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, the levy is defined as a mandatory fee levied from legal entities and individuals in two cases: when carrying out certain types of entrepreneurial activity within the territory in which it was introduced; when business entities are granted certain rights or permits (licenses) are issued.
- The targeted direction of the payment is inconsistent with the principle of general (aggregate) coverage of budget expenditures. The spending of public funds is not linked to a specific type of income or source of financing the budget deficit, unless otherwise provided by the Budget Code.
What turns out "in the bottom line"
Obviously, conducting a humanitarian collection means an increase in the cost of print and electronic publications, pay TV channels, and an increase in advertising budgets on the Internet. It is not yet clear whether the payer is only an advertising platform (for example, Yandex. Direct) or an advertising agency that placed ads here in the interests of the client? Most likely, in the end, it will turn out that the amount of the contract will be + 5 percent and everyone who is in the chain will pay the levy to the state.
The tax authorities will certainly ensure that the money is collected from the revenues of advertisers and advertisers. Those, in turn, will include this percentage in the cost of services provided to advertisers. Thus, the humanitarian collection "strikes" not the richest advertisers, but puts small media outlets, journalists in instant messengers, authors of podcasts and YouTube videos, owners of groups in social networks on the brink of survival. Advertisers with low profit margins and heavily dependent on traffic are forced to leave the market.
As for the bombastic name of the payment, the following questions arise:
- How will the funds be spent for the good purposes announced by the initiators of the bill No. 979423-7, if, according to the current norms, all the collected money falls into a common "budgetary pot"?
- What needs to be done to ensure that, in addition to patrons and charitable foundations, the “humanitarian fee” becomes a source of financing for Russian medicine to help people with serious and rare diseases?
One more thing. It is unlikely that we will see any changes in social advertising in the near future. Those who need it didn’t have the money for production and placement. This means that there is still no opportunity to use the limit. Advertisers, puzzled by the innovations, will still not rush to participate in public procurement tenders in their area.
