On «tax productivity» of Russian manufacturing industry

Abstract

The government considers economy as a source for solving its problems, such as the production of public goods, the redistribution policy, etc. Since the mechanism for collecting these resources is taxation, a “tax productivity” may be of interest along with labor productivity expressed in the income or added value created. The possibility of calculating this indicator at the micro level (data of taxpayers) appeared with the Federal Tax Service of Russia publication of open data on tax paid, the average personnel headcount and other enterprise indicators. According to the open data available, calculations of indicators reflecting labor productivity (the ratio of income to the average headcount), the tax burden (the ratio of taxes paid to income) and tax productivity are presented in the article, with the sectoral distribution of median indicators (OKVED subsections) for the manufacturing industry in 2019. It is shown that each job in industry gives the government about 50-300 thousand rubles a year. Based on the results of the calculations, significant differences in productivity between industries and within them are confirmed. In general, Russian taxation system maintains horizontal equality of tax liabilities, except for activities subject to excise duties. For the data array of taxpaying enterprises, this relationship is weakening, i.e., enterprises with higher labor productivity may have higher or lower tax burdens. From the point of view of tax productivity, there is no reason to speak of an obvious, pronounced stimulating or restraining nature of the tax system, which ensures a decrease in the burden or, conversely, an increase in fees for efficient industrial enterprises.