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Russia's wealthy elite could face higher income taxes, according to a proposal the country's finance ministry floated on Tuesday. The proposal, which would likely have to go through parliament for approval and subsequently a signoff by President Vladimir Putin, comes as Russia continues to spend vast amounts of money on the military campaign in Ukraine. The proposal involves a progressive tax on personal incomes and represents a change of course from the current flat-rate tax that was credited with bringing order and improving tax collections after it was introduced in 2001. It envisages imposing a 13 per cent tax for incomes of up to 2.4 million rubles (USD 27,000) a year. For incomes over that amount, a steadily higher tax rates would apply. The maximum tax would be 22 per cent for annual incomes exceeding 50 million rubles (USD 555,000). The increased taxes would affect only 3.2 per cent of Russia's working population, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on the ministry's websi
When Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, the outside world viewed those Russians known as oligarchs as men whose vast wealth, ruthlessly amassed, made them almost shadow rulers. A government of the few, in the word's etymology. The term has persisted well into Putin's rule, broadening in popular usage to refer to almost any Russian with a substantial fortune. How much political power any of Russia's uber-rich now wield, however, is doubtful. A few hours after Putin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, a televised meeting he held in the Kremlin with top industrialists and entrepreneurs showed how the dynamics had changed: Putin simply told them he had no choice but to invade. Despite the harsh consequences to their wealth that the tycoons could expect from the war, they had to accept it; the power was his, not theirs. THE ORIGINAL OLIGARCHS After the collapse of the Soviet Union, astute businessmen who had already begun building operations as government controls loosened u