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Meeting with cabinet members, Mr Putin noted that work on drawing up the programme for a transition to an innovation economy has dragged on too long without justified reason and that concrete steps are needed, including in the area of taxation in the high technology sectors.

The single social tax is a key issue in this regard because payroll costs constitute the main expense for businesses in the high technology sector. The President said he understands the concerns that tax instruments could be used for dishonest purposes by keeping back and understating the real payroll figures but stressed that, “this should not prevent us from moving forward, if we think that this step is the right one to take, because we should not acknowledge our own inability to administer tax collection.“