Inspectors Press Russians to Pay Taxes : Revenue: Moscow is converting to the Western European system. Citizens are unused to filling out the forms.

Russia’s 60,000 tax inspectors are busy putting the squeeze on a record number of tax evaders and their efforts are being richly rewarded, the head of the country’s State Tax Service said Wednesday.

Igor N. Lazarev proudly told reporters that his service in 1991 alone brought in 10.6 billion rubles (about $118 million at the usual commercial exchange rate) in unpaid taxes, spending only 1.5 billion rubles ($17 million) to recover it.

“You can see from this fact alone how useful we are to the state,” Lazarev said.

But not everyone in the Russian government shares his satisfaction. “We are collecting taxes very poorly,” Labor Minister Alexander N. Shokhin said recently. “Tax collection is running behind schedule, and by mid-January it was lagging behind our expenditures.”

Russia is now adopting a radically different system of financing government expenditures, compared to what existed until last year. In Lazarev’s words, “We are converting to the Western European system, and experts from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are advising and supervising us.”

For ordinary Russians, the change has produced a maze of more than 50 taxes, tariffs, fees and mandatory levies, the calculation of which can drive anyone to distraction, especially when even tax inspectors themselves aren’t sure which law applies.

Recognizing this problem, Dmitri G. Chernik, head of the Moscow tax collection network, told a news conference that the Russian equivalent of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service is setting up a special educational center in Moscow. It will advise tax officials and taxpayers.

But, when it comes to helping ordinary Russians with taxes, this will be no easy task. Russians have not filled out forms and fulfilled the other taxation rites long familiar to Westerners; for generations, wage earners in the former Soviet Union needed no knowledge of taxation since taxes were automatically deducted from salaries by factory accountants.

In those days, the state owned everything and had vast sources of revenue other than income taxes. Today, with the collapse of Soviet communism, citizens must assume the heavy burden of paying for their government. Many are reluctant to do so.

Chernik said that up to 30% of Russians do not pay, although the basic tax rate for most people has changed only marginally, to 13% against the old rate of 12%. “So far we have practically no mechanism for tax enforcement,” he said. Lazarev, his chief, agreed: “By all indications we will have to stiffen the punishment for tax evasion. After all, 500 to 1,000 rubles ($6 to $12) in fines isn’t all that effective with today’s inflation.”

Lazarev said private business is even less law-abiding. That may be attributable to ignorance of the complex tax provisions or to deliberate evasion.

But he noted that, until now, this sector has accounted for only 10% of taxes collected “so we have some time for rectifying the situation.” The difficulty that will confront collectors, though, was evident from his admission that inspectors have been threatened and even assaulted by furious business people.

Lazarev announced that tax rates are once again about to be reviewed, barely six weeks after their adjustment by the Russian legislature.

The newly introduced, 28% value added tax (a levy akin to a sales tax but which is assessed all the way through the manufacturing process) has been fueling rampant inflation, further provoking consumers. Therefore, lawmakers have decreed that this tax rate will be cut on some food items.

Grebenshikov is a reporter in the Times Moscow bureau.