Foreign tech companies may be required to pay income tax on Russian bloggers’ earnings from advertising on platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.
The proposal has been made by the Ministry of Digital Development, Vedomosti reports.
The initiative is aimed at increasing government revenues from Russian bloggers’ activities. With the new tax, large blogging platforms will have to pay income tax for bloggers if they make money on advertising.
“The plan is to withhold a 13% income tax from earnings on foreign content platforms such as YouTube. At present, individuals in Russia are paying a 13% personal income tax when working with Russian platforms such as Yandex.Zen,” explained tax expert Nikolai Yepikhin, director of the Uproshchyonka (‘simplified taxation system’) website. “The platform actually collects the tax from them and transfers it to the state, as a tax agent. The deduction is stated in the 2-NDFL certificate. As of today, Russians making money on YouTube are expected to pay their income tax after the money is credited to their accounts. Apparently, the legislators now want to require the platform to collect the tax.”