Federation Council seconded changes of resource fees

The profile committee on wild resources and wild-life conservation working under Russia's Federation Council has seconded introduction of amendments into the second part of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation aimed at increasing efficiency of exploitation of quotas for capture of aquatic biological resources.

The amendments first of all include new resource fees for exploitation of a number of aquatic species. More specifically, the amended Tax Code increases fees for several highly valuable species. At the same time, the resource fees for exploitation of abundant and non-valuable species such as herring, saury, squid and other species shall be decreased.

Besides, the fees for a number of crab species shall be also decreased due to growing cost of their exploitation, current trends of falling product prices against the need of exploitation of those stocks.

The proposed amendments to the Tax Code also provide for introduction of privileges for the Russian fishing businesses. More specifically, fishing artels and companies vital for the local communities will enjoy soft fees accounting for 15% of the fees defined by the Tax Code.

Certainly, the indulgences such as soft fees, etc. cannot solve all the problems in the nation's fishery sector, but they are expected to be one of the government's means to solve them.