Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the State Duma (Russia’s lower chamber of parliament), said the Duma was preparing a law to introduce higher taxation for people who have left the country, as many have since the so-called “special military operation” was launched in Ukraine in late February this year.  

Russian media reports cited the legislature speaker Vyacheslav Volodin as saying on Sunday that lawmakers at the State Duma are developing a bill that would cancel certain preferences and raise taxes.  

According to the speaker, the Russians who the country left must understand that most of the Russian society “doesn’t support what they did and believes they betrayed their country, their family members and close ones.”

"There are those who believe that it is necessary to give preferences and benefits to those who left our country so that they return.  This is wrong.  It is right to abolish preferences for those who left the Russian Federation and introduce an increased tax rate for them.  We are working on amendments to the legislation to that effect," Volodin wrote on the Telegram messaging app, according to TASS. 

“It is right to cancel preferences for those who have left the Russian Federation and to introduce an increased tax rate for them," Volodin noted.  

“To-date, those who have left not only work in Russian companies remotely, but also enjoy all the benefits that it gives them in accordance with the legislation of our country,” the speaker said.