The faction of the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) in the State Duma (Russia’s lower chamber of parliament) has drafted a bill for submission to the State Duma, proposing an increase in the income tax rate for foreign citizens working in Russia on a patent basis to 30%, Izvestiya reported on August 5.

"The concept of the bill aims to revise the main parameters of the tax system concerning foreign citizens and increase the revenue of the Russian budgetary system to address large-scale national tasks in the social and economic spheres," the document states.

The bill notes that, according to Rosstat data, in 2022 alone, the number of foreign citizens who obtained work permits in Russia over the year was 2,164.6 thousand people, of whom 2,035 thousand had an active patent for employment.  The 2023 figures are virtually the same, the document specifies.

"According to Paragraph 3 of Article 224 of the Russian Tax Code, a tax rate of 30% is provided for all incomes received by individuals who are not tax residents of Russia.  However, the incomes of foreign citizens engaged in employment based on a patent do not fall under this norm. Instead, these incomes are taxed according to a progressive scale," the bill's authors write, proposing to amend this.

"In recent years, more and more foreigners are striving to come to Russia for work.  Almost two-thirds of migrants today are employed under a patent, and all the money they earn is sent to their families abroad.  But we believe that the income of foreign specialists should contribute to the Russian budget," LDPR leader Leonid Slutsky explained the reason for drafting the bill.

According to Slutsky, this will allow the budget to be replenished with additional revenues, which will go towards the development of cities and villages, including measures to support families with children and other socially significant areas.

State Duma members have repeatedly proposed increasing the income tax rate for foreign labor migrants. In August 2023, a group of lawmakers from "A Just Russia" submitted a bill to the State Duma, providing for a fourfold increase in the cost of patents for migrants.  Later, member of LDPR faction in the State Duma Yaroslav Nilov also proposed increasing mandatory payments for migrants.

Meanwhile, based on data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB of the Russian Federation, a paper by Ms. Yu. Florinskaya (the Center "Institute for Social Analysis and Prediction", RANEPA, Moscow) notes that at the present stage, almost 90% of labor migration is provided by migrants from three Central Asian countries - Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan; the first two countries reportedly also make the main contribution to regional budgets in the form of payments for patents.