FX.co ★ The new calculation formula of oil tax

According to Ministry of Finance, such a change would make it possible to increase the RF budget by 1.6 trillion rubles in the period from 2016 to 2018, as RIA Novosti informs, referring to the agency's documents.

The essence of the innovation lies in a corrected calculation at a fixed exchange rate of the dollar for 2014, and not at the current average rate of the US currency paired with the ruble in the current tax period. As a result, a part of the oil price that is not taxed will be less in ruble terms.

Such a proposal of the RF Ministry of Finance was caused by the oil market instability, which led to dufficulties in the country's account balance.

The new tax proposal will affect the calculation method of the so-called cut-off oil price of $15 per barrel, which helps to define the oil producing companies' profit share that is free of the barrelage tax.

According to the released document of the Ministry of Finance, the forecasts look as follows: in 2016 the rate will be 63.5 rubles per dollar, in 2017 - 64.8 rubles and in 2018 - 65.8 rubles.

But if considering the dollar exchange rate for 2014 and the inflation rate, the following picture emerges: 43.8 rubles per dollar in 2016, 47.1 rubles in 2017, 49.8 rubles in 2018.

The Bloomberg news agency and the Russian media have previously raised the issue of a possible increase in taxes on oil extraction in Russia several times.