Interfax Russia reported that Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry & Trade Mr Denis Manturov at a meeting on the metallurgical sector's development chaired by Russian President Mr Vladimir Putin said that the tax burden on the Russian steel industry needs to be eased by adjusting the excise tax on liquid steel and revising mineral extraction tax or MET for iron ore and coal.. He said “Firstly we believe it is necessary to reduce the fiscal burden, which was introduced last year on a wave of windfall profits. The situation has now changed dramatically. In this regard, I would ask you to back our initiative to adjust the excise tax on liquid steel. This has today essentially become not a tax on income, but one on turnover which the sector did not previously have.
Mr Manturov added “This was certainly justified when prices spiked, but now we propose to return to this issue, amid ongoing decline in capacity utilization and the performance indicators of the enterprises themselves. Now the export margins of Russian metallurgists are not as high as they were a year ago, and world steel prices are falling sharply, so metallurgists are also forced to work at a discount in new markets.”
He also spoke of the need to revise the formula for calculating MET for iron ore and coking coal for each enterprise, taking their specifics into consideration.
