According to Vedomosti, such idea has been discussed at the meeting in administration of Russian president. But not only Google was under fire. Other foreign internet companies have been also considered as a target for new taxes. If EU wants more tax revenues from IT companies, why Russia should forget about similar opportunity? At the meeting participants have come to common opinion that Google and Apple certainly don’t pay enough taxes to Russian budget. When Russians buy apps, music or movies in such online store like AppStore, iTunes or GooglePlay, their payments are not imposed in Russia because they buy directly from foreign companies. Google pays taxes much less than Russian Yandex, for example.
Anyway, prior to any decision, public discussion must be organised till the end of March 2015. And only after that a new mechanisms of additional taxation should be developed. For example, decide how foreign companies must pay VAT from sales of content through cloud services. As an option it could be prohibition to pay directly by means of payments cards issued by Russian banks and impose VAT at place of purchase. By the more complicated thing is evaluation of Google’s incomes gained from advertisement in Russian segment of internet in order to examine whether Google pays all taxes. But it is not clear what to do with tax profit. But it does not mean that Google has problems with Russian tax authorities. Who will pay new taxes? Certainly customers do. It could mean that services of foreign IT companies in Russia can be more expensive for Russian customers.