Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
Moscow’s war chest is coming out of the pockets of savers and online shoppers.
Russia’s Finance Ministry has spent months warning that this year’s fiscal plan is falling apart, with oil revenues sliding and defense outlays climbing.
On Thursday, September 24, the ministry laid out how ordinary Russians will help close the gap.
The ministry submitted a package of bills to the government including a draft federal budget for 2027-2029 that raises the tax on passive personal income to a ceiling of 22%, up from the current top rate of 15%, and applies a new 22% value-added tax on cross-border e-commerce paid by online platforms.
The passive-income change unifies bank-deposit interest, stock dividends, real estate sales, and securities trading under the main personal income tax scale of 13-22%. It affects roughly 4 million citizens, about 6% of Russians with taxable income, according to the ministry. Military personnel are exempt.
Squeezing shoppers and windfall sectors
Foreign online purchases have so far escaped Russian VAT. Under the draft, marketplaces would collect the 22% rate, and international parcels valued below 200 euros would also carry a flat 100-ruble ($1.18) customs fee.
The ministry also proposes raising the tax on dividends paid to non-residents into so-called Type C accounts to 35%, and introducing a 30% levy on windfall earnings for mining and metallurgical companies when global commodity prices rise.
Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said the plan is designed to hold the line even if conditions shift. “The draft budget will make it possible to meet all obligations of the state and maintain macroeconomic stability should any changes occur,” he said through the ministry’s press service.
A 2026 plan that already broke
The 2027 draft projects a deficit of around 2% of GDP, based on an assumed benchmark oil price of $50 per barrel. The current year’s numbers already tell a harder story.
Russia’s original 2026 plan set the shortfall at 3.79 trillion rubles, or 1.6% of GDP. By the end of the first quarter, the federal deficit had reached 4.6 trillion rubles ($58.8 billion), already eclipsing the annual target.
By July, the Finance Ministry reported a Jan-July gap of 6.455 trillion rubles, or 2.5% of GDP.
Defense remains the dominant line. The 2026 federal budget set military spending at 14.9 trillion rubles, or 6.3% of GDP, the fifth consecutive year of wartime outlays.
According to TASS, the ministry described defense and security funding, along with support for military-operation participants and their families, as the strategic priority of the new draft.
The government will now review the draft before it is sent to the State Duma for consideration.
