OREANDA-NEWS. Russian President’s Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the Kremlin learnt media data about closure of almost 700 thousand legal entities in the country during a year. The politician noted that this information do not coincide with official statistics.

Peskov said that the information published by Izvestia newspaper did not correspond to either the data of the tax service or the data of a small business corporation. “These data absolutely do not coincide with the data that we received from the Corporation for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises and the tax service, there are other data, and they indicate more favorable processes,” he stated.

At the same time, the Kremlin Press Secretary admitted that there are some problems in the development of small and medium-sized businesses in Russia. According to him, correct statistics are hindered by “some nuances.” “For example, there are taxpayers, legal entities that previously paid taxes according with simplified system, but having crossed the ceiling of turnover for “simplification”, they accordingly cease to be small businesses and move into the medium category,” Peskov explained.

The fact that in Russia over the past year 668 thousand legal entities closed was reported by Izvestia on October 25. The publication referred to the press service of the Ministry of Economic Development. According to the newspaper, this was due to the increase in value added tax up to 20 %, the abolition of reduced insurance fee rates for enterprises that worked on a simplified tax scheme, and the massive introduction of cash registers.

At the same time, the representatives of the ministry refused to admit the possibility that such a scale of closure of enterprises could disrupt the achievement of goals under the national plan for the development of small and medium-sized enterprises. In accordance with the adopted project, by 2025 the number of employees in this sector should grow from the 15 million to 25 million people.