Russia Considers Imposing Tax For Not Having Children – JP

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The Putin government has long pushed a culturally conservative agenda, refusing to advance the Western LGBT agenda for instance. The Kremlin also has its eyes on demographics, in an effort to keep Russian culture, well — Russian. The war effort also demands a bigger pool to recruit from.

Now some Russian public figures have begun to advocate a tax on childless families, to help solve the demographic shortfall.

The idea has been raised at least twice in the last few weeks. The first proposals came from Dzhomart Aliyev. He said that to stimulate the birth rate it would be necessary to increase income tax by 3% (he likely meant percentage points), property tax by 0.5% and inheritance tax by 5% for those without children, reported Russian independent news outlet The Bell.

A few days later a respected figure, Alexey Zubets, director of the institute of socio-economic research at the Government Financial University, made a greater splash with his proposal. He suggested collecting 30,000-40,000 rubles a month ($300-400) from childless couples or families with only one child. According to him, this money could be used to address the national demographic program. “Our average salary is 85,000 rubles. A family of two earning that is getting 170,000 rubles. For them, 40,000 rubles is not much money,” Zubets said.

Lawmaker Andrey Gurulyov, the leading figure in the military lobby in the duma, also spoke up for a tax on childlessness, highlighting that during the Soviet Union men aged 20-50 and married women aged 20-45 paid an extra 6% in income tax if they did not have children.

Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, one of the most experienced courtiers with his finger on the Kremlin pulse, dismissed the idea. “There is no need to scare people. This is extreme,” he said.