The increase in tax on passive income announced by the Ministry of Finance will affect many Russians who sell apartments, tax consultants said.
According to them, such income is currently taxed at 13% on a tax base of up to 2.4 million rubles and 15% on the amount above that, and starting in 2027, income from the sale of real estate is planned to be included in the general tax base and taxed according to a scale from 13% to 22%.
The Ministry of Finance wants income from the sale of an apartment to be combined with salaries and other income. The benefit for selling housing after the minimum holding period is not planned to be abolished.
Five Stones Consulting partner Yekaterina Boldinova said that with a monthly salary of 125,000 rubles, additional taxable income for the year should not exceed 900,000 rubles in order to remain within the 13% rate. According to the company’s calculations, when selling an apartment for 10 million rubles, the total tax under the current system will amount to 1.647 million rubles, while under the new one it will be 1.872 million rubles.
Consul Group gave the example of an apartment bought for 20 million rubles and sold two years later for 50 million rubles: in this case, the tax burden will increase by about 950,000 rubles. If the seller receives a salary of 6 million rubles a year, the total tax will increase by 1.27 million rubles.
The changes may also affect owners of expensive real estate: for properties with a cadastral value above 300 million rubles, they want to abolish the 10% annual tax increase cap, and for new properties — to remove the preferential coefficient of 0.6 in the first year.
The government also plans to increase tax revenues not only from the sale of real estate, but also from interest on bank deposits and other assets. According to the Ministry of Finance, the changes will affect no more than 6% of taxpayers, or about 4 million people, and if adopted, the new rules should take effect on January 1, 2027.
In addition, the authorities want to reduce the budget deficit, about a third of whose expenditures go to military needs, and in 2027 bring revenues to a record 1.02 trillion rubles. Starting next year, the government plans to extend the progressive personal income tax scale to deposit interest, income from the sale of securities, and dividends.
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