News

Sergey Shishkaryov Has Advocated for Exempting Parents with Many Children from Personal Income Tax on Corporate Support Payments

Sergey Shishkaryov, Chairman of the Board of Directors at the Delo Group, has advocated for the exemption of employees with numerous children from personal income tax on corporate support payments.

In his address during parliamentary hearings on the topic of "Actual Solutions to Support the Birth Rate: Family Policy," held on November 9 at the Federation Council of the Russian Federation, Shishkaryov emphasized his point.

Shishkaryov highlighted the extraordinary demographic situation in Russia over the past few years, underscoring the role of businesses in supporting the government's efforts to address demographic challenges. As the head of a group encompassing several companies and employing 11 thousand individuals responsible for nearly half of the country’s cargo transportation, Shishkaryov noted that a significant proportion of employees under 40 either have no children or only one child. Furthermore, he pointed out that only 337 employees have three or more children.

“The challenge and opportunity for domestic businesses is to support the state measures in order to improve the demography, meaning to became a state demography agent,” Shishkaryov, Chairman of the Board of Directors at the Delo Group, emphasized during his speech.

In 2022, Delo Group supported the initiative of the Institute of Demographic Policy by Igor Shchegolev. The Group had assessed existing measures, leading to the development of a corporate demographic standard of Delo Group – a program aimed at boosting birth rates and supporting motherhood and childhood. This standard includes progressive benefits, with a notable increase upon the birth of a third child, including a payment of RUB 1 million for the third and subsequent children. Other measures within the program involve additional payments for maternity leave, sick leave during pregnancy, early retirement from maternity leave, compensation for kindergarten and children’s camps, expansion of the VHI program for employees, and more. The Group’s companies have introduced the position of “social manager” to organize work with personnel in terms of the corporate program, and launched a digital platform for patronage of large families of employees.

According to Sergey Shishkaryov, an integrated approach is important to improve the demography in the country, when business complements and supports government programs.

“We do not expect immediate results, but believe that systemic efforts will become an effective tool to help improve the situation as a whole. In order to ensure that maximum spending reaches employees, we propose, similar to maternity capital, to exempt them from paying personal income tax on the payments they receive. We also ask to recognize the costs of supporting employees with many children and their families as economically justified and to take them into account when calculating corporate income tax and not to impose insurance contributions on the one million rubles paid to them. The employees will then be able to receive the entire amount that the company allocates for their support,” he suggested. < Back to list