A record level of capital outflow that equals 1.47 trillion rubles has taken place to the bank accounts outside Russia, in a time period between June and August, according to the Central Bank of Russia. For a comparison, the capital outflow had been recorded as 57 billion rubles in the same time period of 2021 (third quarter), which is 26 times less. For another comparison: the budget revenues for the year 2022 were recorded as 25.02 trillion rubles. This means that roughly 6 percent of all budget revenues of the nation were scooped out of the country by the bourgeoisie, only in the third quarter of the last year. Only then we can add the 543.4 billion and 550.7 billion rubles that are also scooped away in the first and the second quarters, by the “patriotic” bourgeoisie (despite all “sanctions”), who have managed to take out more than 10 percent of the national budget revenues in the last three quarters.
And the outflow did not stop after the third quarter. The Central Bank of Russia has estimated in early December that the Russian citizens had roughly 4.19 trillion rubles (or 66.65 billion USD at that time) in foreign bank accounts, as of November 1st. Also, according to the data released by the Central Bank of Russia on February 13th, the total assets of Russian citizens in foreign bank accounts have summed up to a total of 94.3 billion USD (or about 7 trillion Rubles, that is almost 30 percent of the national budget revenue of 2022). This means that the deposits in foreign bank have more than tripled over the last year. This alone is an enormous capital outflow, and it is just the tip of the iceberg. These data only shows the outflow that the Central Bank has allowed. The account deposits of Russian citizens in foreign banks had reached 0.5 billion USD in January 2022, which have risen to 4.3 billion USD in February. Almost all these transactions have taken place between February 24th and 28th. The outflow has lost its momentum between March and May, since the Central Bank of Russia had imposed harsh restrictions on foreign exchange transactions. And as soon as the banks have relaxed some these restrictions, the outflow spiked again, reaching 48.9 billion USD in the second half of the year, or making up to the 77 percent of the total annual outflow. Even this can be considered as a very modest estimate, since it is not possible to get information from the countries where the outflow has occurred to after the sanctions.
Moreover, the total capital outflow is not only these 70-100 billion USD in foreign banks. The Central Bank had estimated last July, that the total capital outflow in 2022 would be 243 billion USD. This is a record in the last 10 years, with second happening in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea, being 152 billion USD. The total capital outflow between 2012 and 2021 is around 576.5 billion USD. Capital that equals half of that in the previous 10 years, was scooped away in just one year.
Of course, this amount includes that of the foreign companies which sold their assets in Russia or, stakes that Russian companies hold in foreign countries. So, the capital outflow is often not done by carrying huge stacks of cash across the border. But it is done by shifting enormous sums to offshore companies, and that is pretty much like carrying huge bags of cash.
So, this enormous capital outflow can take place in every means and there are not much obstacles to doing this. According to the Head of the Russian Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina, who has spoken around the end of the year, saying “This is not a matter of concern for us in the current situation. We do not consider it necessary to take any special measures in this connection. “, and adding that “As confidence in macroeconomic stability, price stability strengthens, these funds will return to the Russian banking system, to rubles.”
I get goosebumps as soon as I hear “macroeconomic stability”
Another important statement from the Central Bank was that “import substitutions have been reduced to the cost of standard of living”. So, almost 400 billion USD in assets have been frozen in western banks, there has been a capital outflows close to 250 billion USD this year, but it is import substitutions were lowered to the cost of standard of living. And this statement was made right after the announcement by the US government that American companies would be 152 billion USD of subsidies in microchip production.
One of the most prominent economists in Russia Mikhail Khazin, posted an article on Telegram that “he had initially written for a media outlet, but he did not manage to get it published”, in which Glazyev immediately posted. He claimed that the Russian “fiscal bloc” (the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank) were still represented by the liberal elite, who still wanted Russia to remain in the “necessary liberal” international community. He says, they must meet the basic requirements of the “Washington Consensus” to achieve this. Two of these requirements would be: “Prohibiting all Ruble investments and motivating further capital outflow”. And the second would be maintaining the liquidity of the global dollarization over the nation’s own interests”. Khazin explains the recent capital outflow that broke records in the first three quarters of 2022, with these theses.
And the relationship between economics and politics gets even more evident at this point, while Khazin considers this stance of the “fiscal bloc” as high treason.
Taxation Of The Grand Bourgeoisie
Putin’s speech at the Eastern Economic Forum in early September was of great programmatic importance. I have evaluated his speech under “9 crucial points” back then. And on the eighth point, I stated:
“The Kremlin keeps stressing that they have used and will continue to use ‘the market mechanisms and instruments’ to seize the ‘excess profit’ of the grand bourgeoisie. This could shows that the grand bourgeoisie has not succeeded in its lobbying efforts together with the ‘fiscal bloc”.
In his speech, Putin has described these market instruments as follows:
“These will be market instruments that are known by all: it can either be customs clearance or recovery of the excess profit in some other ways”.
The target of these words was neither the petty bourgeoisie that emerged after the crisis, nor the new middle bourgeoisie that has now started to flourish after the disqualification of the Navalniyite middle bourgeoisie after February 24th. They too, managed to accumulate an “excessive profit”, and are still accumulating, but the real target was the grand bourgeoisie, which were mainly active in the fields of telecommunications, mining industries and finances, and clearly reeked of a dangerous threat (even if Putin had given a guarantee of “private property” at the same time).
Despite Putin’s programmatic speech, the aforementioned issue has not come up for a long time. Finally, on February 15th, around four and a half months after the announcement of the program, the Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Sazanov has announced that “started working” on two resolutions on this agenda: A voluntary payment, or a kind of involuntary taxation.
Why did it take so long or why did this even come up in the end? The answer to the first question is: We would not expect the grand bourgeoisie to not resist the taxation of excess profit, imposed by the Kremlin. Moreover, the economic situation was relatively stable from the beginning of September and until December when sanctions on crude oil exports were imposed, so back then the first shock was absorbed, and the nation has turned from the brink of total collapse. This may be an exaggerated rhetoric, but definitely not a false one. The Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov has clearly stated that “the economy is at risk of collapse” on December 27th when in describing the situation in March, and that he “thinks that the economy is about to go completely out of control”. Meanwhile Belousov has addressed the Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Central Bank of Russia when crediting those who managed to reverse this doomsday scenario, but did not mention anything about the Ministry of Finance. Therefore, the resistance by the grand bourgeoisie must have gained more momentum in such atmosphere of a relative satisfaction.
And the answer to the second question is: The “fiscal bloc” had to stop further hindering this program, since the problem of financing the government budget, which is caused by a massive decline in the natural gas and oil revenues due to sanctions and the sabotage of Nord Stream 2 pipeline, keeps threatening to destroy the Russian economy.
The Finance Minister Siluanov spoke only two days after Sazanov and stated that he expects “industry giants” to make a “voluntary contribution” of 300 billion rubles to the government budget in return for their excessive profits in 2021 and 2022. Such funds would not cover the expected budget deficit since the budget deficit in 2023 is the expected to be around 2.9 trillion rubles (which is 2 percent of the GDP), and can reach 5 trillion rubles due to the large decrease in oil and gas revenues that occurred as a result of the sanctions. We can understand that the Ministry has alleviated the taxes on grand bourgeoisie to an enormous scale, and has reduced it to around 10 percent of the expected budget deficit even with the most optimistic estimations. But even this was not enough, so the minister tried to make it a “voluntary action”. Moreover, the ministry must have negotiated with some these “industry giants” and tried to get their consent, that is because according to Siluanov: “These industry giants are ready to share some of their profit, with the state”. And on top of that, Siluanov also announced the good news that oil and gas companies would not be charged an additional tax over their profits over these past years.
There seems to be a mismatch between the words of the minister and his deputy; While the deputy minister speaks of two resolutions, there is only one solution according to the minister. While his deputy also points out the hard way, the minister states that there is already an understanding with the grand bourgeoisie on this issue.
However the grand bourgeoisie does not seem convinced these days. Head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Aleksandr Shokhin, has made it clear that voluntary action would not work out. But this was not as if “there could not be a thing called voluntary tax, we should force it properly”, but rather something like “there cannot be a tax on excess profits, since things like private property and the free market are untouchable, we should instead reduce taxes so that the free market can invest even freer and the concept of big government is nonsense anyways” etc.
An Involuntary Volunteerism
On the exact same day that Siluanov has made the voluntary tax announcement, the Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov was asked about this issue at a press briefing. Peskov noted that talks are still ongoing, while similar practices are very common all over the world, and that the government is in a constant contact with representatives of large businesses on this issue, while adding: “The key word is voluntary, but, of course, the interaction between the country’s leadership and business, and the government and the business sector, is a two-way street. Therefore, of course, it is necessary that both sides, although we are all on the same side nonetheless, were clearly aware of the realities that we live in today and the needs the country has”.
That was regarded as a very diplomatic response, and although it did not imply a direct challenge to the grand bourgeoisie, which he had comforted with his message of cooperation, the warning or some may even say the threat, was clear enough. The Kremlin as it is the rational thought, has no doubt that the grand bourgeoisie will not show any voluntary willingness, therefore the formula of involuntary volunteerism must have seemed more practical. The force may bare more fruits, and with the threat of enforcing it, some giant industries may volunteer to contribute and receive a reward in the form of a state decoration, but the division of labor between those who can afford it and those who cannot is such that the Kremlin will not hesitate to introduce some new ways of encouraging volunteerism, in order to overcome the foolishness (that word can be used conditionally), of the “fiscal bloc”.
However, the “fiscal bloc” will not hesitate to look for ways to minimize the profit losses of the grand bourgeoisie. As a matter of fact, the first major move came on the exact same day, from the bloc’s one significant part, the Central Bank. Not only did the Central Bank back the Ministry’s volunteerism plan, it also proposed to cancel the debts of these companies to the government banks in return for the “voluntary contributions” of this class, that totals 300 billion Rubles (according to the report of Banksta, one of the closest affiliated outlets of the grand bourgeoisie).
This is a marvelous bribery! Let us first cancel all short, medium and long term loans, then you can “donate” us, and let us call this volunteering.
The central bank’s call for peace was quick to earn Deripaska’s approval. The owner of RUSAL wrote: “This would be a balanced decision, if not the ideal”.
The “conflicting alliance” continues, as the existence of this alliance does not stop the conflict. The Kremlin will continue its involuntary volunteerism imposition, but it can accept to cancel some of the long-term loans, while it could be a little bit difficult to cancel medium-term loans, and it will surely reject to cancel short-term loans. While it is certain that the problem cannot be solved with such negotiations, while the Kremlin will continue to go for the grand bourgeoisie to finance the government budget, the fiscal bloc will continue its efforts to fend it off, as oil and gas revenues fall rock bottom.
***
There have been two new developments confirming what I have claimed, after I have written them. So, it impossible to end this article without mentioning about them briefly.
First, Putin’s programmatic speech on February 22nd, included the announcement that they would not back down on taxation, despite the pressures from the bourgeoisie and the “fiscal bloc” (he openly admitted “things are tough”). Despite the insistence and the determination of the “fiscal bloc”, the cancellation of long-term loans was largely off the agenda after this speech.
The second is the statements made by Alexander Shokhin, the same day that of Putin’s speech. Shokhin said, they had reached an agreement with the government for a one-time “windfall tax”. The fact that this is defined as a tax, and not as a voluntary contribution, clearly shows the Kremlin’s dedication. And for Shohin, there is only one question that remains: That is how to estimate these “excess profits”.
