On July 28, 2023, the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted the Law "On the Tax on Excess Profit", which will enter into force on January 1, 2024.
The taxpayers are:
Russian legal entities, foreign legal entities that carry on business through their permanent representation in the Russian Federation, and foreign legal entities that are tax residents in accordance with Article 246.2 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation;
Russian legal entities who are responsible members of the Consolidated Group of Taxpayers (KGN) as of December 31, 2022.
According to the law, the new tax is a one-time fee in the amount of 10% of the excess profit that the company has received over the previous two years. About the excess profit is understood a positive difference between the average arithmetic profit for 2021-2022 and the same value for 2018-2019. The calculation of profit before tax payment is taken into account.
If the average arithmetic profit for 2021-2022 corresponds to the same value for 2018-2019, the tax base is corresponded to zero. Also, the tax base will be corresponded to zero if the average arithmetic profit for 2021-2022 is not more than one billion rubles.
The tax must be paid no later than January 28, 2024.
However, the law provides a discount for early tax payment. For such companies that will make the payment in the period from October 1 to November 30, 2023 inclusive, the tax deduction will be provided in the amount of the tax paid, but not more than half of this amount. In fact, a 50% discount is provided for early payment. At the same time, this discount can be less if the company will not pay the total amount from the tax, but a part of it.
Example. The company will have to pay the tax for excess profit in the amount of 10 billion rubles. In October 2023, this company will transfer 4 billion rubles to the budget. This is less than half of the total amount from the tax. This means that the payment is completely counted as a tax refund.
From January 1 to January 28, 2024, the company will have to pay: 10 billion rubles (total amount from tax) minus 4 billion rubles (amount during the discount) minus 4 billion rubles (amount from tax refund) = 2 billion rubles.
In this case, the total amount from the tax will be reduced from 10 to 6 billion rubles.
The tax will not concern small or medium-sized enterprises, ESHN payers (Unified Agricultural Tax), enterprises established after 2020, as well as those enterprises whose average pre-tax profit for the years 2021-2022 does not exceed 1 billion rubles.
Moreover, for the purposes of the application of the law, such companies will be excluded from the Consolidated Group of Taxpayers (KGN) in 2023:
who in the course of 2022 extracted raw hydrocarbon on the property with mineral resources, which, in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation, was handed over to enterprises for use;
who in the course of 2022 extracted coal on the property with mineral resources, which, in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation, was handed over to enterprises for use;
who, as of December 31, 2022, had a certificate of registration of a person who processed petroleum and calculated the value of the damping coefficient for at least six tax periods of excise duties for 2022 more than zero.