Amount Of Taxes Paid By Belarusians
- 9.01.2023, 21:50
It's not even half of your salary, it's much more.
Officials from time to time claim that Belarusians underpay for some services or goods. The day before, the Ministry of Taxes and Levies has reproached the population for "underpaying" tax on the first flat, writes Zerkalo.
Is it true that the Belarusians do not provide enough money for the state, and how many taxes does each of us pay?
What Taxes Exist In Belarus?
There are quite a lot of actual taxes (together with fees and duties). About some of them almost everyone knows, and some of them are unnoticed by many people.
One of the most popular is income tax. Businessmen and entrepreneurs as well as self-employed and freelancers are well aware of its amount, because they calculate how much they have to pay to the state. For them, the rate of this tax is often higher than for employees. Hired workers also see a deduction of 13% of their wages on their payslips every month. This is the income tax. But since it has been calculated and deducted for the employees by the employer for payment to the tax authorities, many of us do not think about how much they pay to the state from their wages each month.
For example, between January and November of last year, the national average wage was 1,606 rubles. Those who received such a wage paid the state almost Br209 of income tax every month. That is, over 11 months such a worker paid Br2,299 to the treasury. Imagine that there are millions of these workers and the total is billions of rubles to the budget each year in this form of that tax alone.
Value Added Tax (VAT) is the largest tax in terms of budget revenues. Most often, its rate is 20%. Absolutely every Belarusian pays it, but does it unnoticed by himself. Each time, buying any good or service, you pay about one fifth of its cost to the state in the form of this tax, but not directly.
Let's say you went to a shop and spent 150 roubles there. On average, 30 rubles of this amount goes to the budget as VAT. If your purchases included children's goods and medicines, this amount will be lower because VAT on them is not 20% but 10%. This tax is not reflected in the receipt in any way, you just pay - that's all. But before all these goods get in your trolley, the companies have already paid VAT on them. Since ultimately any company makes money from the sale of its goods or services, all the taxes it pays to the government are added to their value. Value added tax is at the top of the list.
There is also a profit tax. As the name implies, companies pay it out of their profits. Previously it was 18%, but since the beginning of this year it has been 20%. In other words, companies give one fifth of their profits to the state. Thanks to this tax, about one tenth of revenues go to the budget.
Excise duties are not formally considered taxes, they are relegated to a separate caste. But it does not change the essence - companies also pay them. However, not all of them, but only those defined by the state as excisable. First of all, these are alcoholic beverages, tobacco and fuel. Again, companies pay them, but obviously these costs are built into the final cost of products. This means that everyone who buys petrol, cigarettes and alcoholic beverages participates in financing the budget in this way. Excise duties contribute 7-8% of all revenues to the budget.
Customs duties are usually included in the budget calculations under 'revenues from foreign economic activity'. They are paid by companies that import or export their goods. The rates of these duties vary greatly. While exporters put the amount of duties in the price for buyers from other countries, importers do so for Belarusians. So, just as with VAT and excise duties, these payments concern everyone who buys such imported goods.
These are the biggest and most visible taxes. But there are actually many more. For example, property tax, dog tax, real estate tax (now including the first flat), land tax. As of this year, there is a tax on professional income.
There are also interesting and quite large payments that many of us don't notice. Employees' payslips always show a deduction of 1% of their wages to the Social Security Fund. It seems that 1% is not that much. But there is a hidden side to this payment: for each worker in the company, the employer pays another 34% of the payroll to the Social Security Fund. Of this, 28% is pension insurance and 6% is social insurance.
Technically, these are not taxes, but insurance payments, but they are also the funding of the state by the people, which allows it to perform its basic functions. That is, every worker essentially pays contributions to the state for their future pension, for sick pay, for disability allowance, for childcare allowance.
This is why at the very beginning we talked about formally free health care. After all, if to take into account that 90% of the budget it is maintained at the expense of taxes and that every employee pays insurance contributions, then we can say for sure that the Belarusians pay in advance for the services of the state medical system, regardless of how often they use it.
Amount Of Taxes Every Belarusian Pays
Let's count. Let's say you are an employee and work for a company (it doesn't matter if it's private or state-run), and you are not a businessman. In this case, you pay 13% income tax, 1% of contributions to the Social Security Fund, while your employer pays an additional 34% of your salary to the same fund. In other words, you pay the state 48% of your wages on the day you receive your paycheque.
Why do we think that you pay 34% of your wages instead of your employer? Because in many countries these payments are first received by the employee and then he pays the state, but here they just do not come to the employee and are deducted in advance and go to the Social Security Fund directly from the employer. Under a different approach, your salary might have been 34% higher, but you would have had to pay the contributions yourself.
So, you are the "average" Belarusian who is lucky enough to get an average salary. So, last November, you were entitled to 1648 rubles for your work. Your employer has already paid your Social Security contributions and deducted 1% from your salary. This means you received slightly more than Br1417.
As an "average" Belarusian, you spent approximately 40% or nearly 567 rubles on food. Of these, around Br113 are given to the government in the form of VAT (if you take the rate of 20%).
However, as we found out above, the cost of goods and services also includes other taxes that companies pay. Obviously, in this case, more money went to the budget thanks to your purchases. If you own a car and have had a couple of bottles of wine in a month, then you have paid excise taxes to the budget. Also, if you own a car, you are subject to transport tax. If you buy clothes or appliances or go to cafes or canteens, you pay not only for the product or service itself but also for the taxes included in its price.
If you rent a flat, you pay the landlord, and he then pays part of the money in taxes for what you rent out. If you are lucky enough to own your own home, you pay tax on it. Do you have a dog? Then you are well aware of how much tax you pay to the state for it.
In the end, it turns out that almost imperceptibly you pay a big part of your salary to the state. But this is not the unique case of Belarus. As we have noted above, maintaining the state at the expense of taxes is a normal practice in the developed world. It is a prerequisite for life in modern society in any country. In exchange, the state undertakes to provide guarantees and services which are specified in the Constitution and laws. For example, to protect against crime, to ensure national security and territorial integrity, to provide various public services, to take care of improving the quality of life of citizens, to adopt laws and regulations that are convenient for it, and to develop infrastructure. It also guarantees conditionally free health care and education.
The way the state fulfils all these obligations is a different matter.