In the current year, against the backdrop of a growing fiscal burden initiated by the Russian government, which is in dire need of money to finance the war in Ukraine, there may be a mass closure of small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs). This was told to “Izvestia” by entrepreneur and member of the general council of “Business Russia” Oleg Nikolayev. According to him, the process of exit from the market of microenterprises (with a staff of up to 15 people and an annual income of up to 120 million rubles) has already “accelerated” due to a threefold reduction in the threshold of revenue from which entrepreneurs must pay VAT, to 20 million rubles. In 2026, 250-300 such SME companies may close in such conditions. We are talking about small cafes, shoe manufacturers, freight carriers, bakeries and other similar enterprises.
This, in turn, could lead to a jump in prices for goods and services for end consumers, says the head of the “People’s Front. Analytics” direction Olga Pozdnyakova. “If the [tax] burden continues to grow without countermeasures [from the authorities], the choice remains difficult: price, quality or scale,” notes the executive director of the “Gruzovichkov” service Andrey Pasechnikov, noting that in such conditions, the rise in prices for goods and services is natural, but not instantaneous. Earlier, the deputy head of the Ministry of Economic Development Tatyana Ilyushnikova stated that the government’s innovations will lead to an almost threefold increase in the tax burden on SMEs – from 3% to 8-9% of revenue (The Moscow Times).
