According to the Deputy Speaker of the State Duma S. Zheleznyak, in the coming months the question of regulating advertising in blogs and social networks may be raised. The point is that popular bloggers who earn advertising revenue do not reflect these receipts in their tax returns and do not pay anything. The treasury bears losses from this.
The reaction of Russian Internet users to this initiative of the State Duma turned out to be negative. There was both restrained bewilderment and very malicious ridicule. While admitting that some bloggers do make good ad revenues, users concurrently argued that the number is very small. And it is hardly worth holding events at the level of the State Duma, changing legislation in order to force these people to pay taxes, if only because the possible income will turn out to be absolutely insignificant on a national scale.
According to one of the most famous Russian bloggers Ilya Varlamov, the deputies of the lower house of parliament, since they are so concerned about replenishing the treasury, should have turned their ebullient energy in a different direction. For example, it is no secret to anyone that in Russia a huge number of people earn extra money by renting out apartments, private cabbies, tutoring, selling products made by their own labor, and at the same time do not declare income, respectively, without paying any taxes. Varlamov asks quite reasonable questions: why does the state practically not try to levy taxes in these areas (and after all, they are talking about very big money)? Why is it planning to control bloggers' earnings instead, even though it knows it will get a pittance at best? The vice-speaker gives the following arguments: the one who advertises is actually engaged in commercial activity, which means that he must pay the appropriate taxes.
Russians who have never even blogged are asking the same questions. And I must say frankly that the arguments of the Vice-Speaker S. Zheleznyak look very unconvincing. Therefore, the fears are growing louder and louder that the fight against "unearned income" from advertising is just a screen designed to disguise the authorities' attempts to introduce censorship on the Internet, as well as to gain leverage on bloggers.
