In 2015 the Tax Service received 5.4 million declarations during the declaration campaign held from January to the end of April, which is 8 percent more than in last year. The total amount of the personal income tax (PIT) paid grew by 12 percent: the Tax Service collected 58 billion roubles.

However, in early June the Federal Service of State Statistics reported that the number of Russians with incomes below the subsistence level increased by 3 million people in the first quarter of 2015 and amounted to 22.9 million. The poverty rate in Russia makes up 16 percent.

At the same time the cost of living in the first quarter rose to 9.7 thousand roubles against 7.7 thousand in the same period of 2014. An average income of Russians, according to the statistics, reached 25.2 thousand roubles.

According to the list of dollar billionaires published by Forbes in April of this year, the number of wealthy Russians decreased. The list includes 88 businessmen from Russia against 111 in the previous ranking. The first line was then taken by the co-owner of “Norilsk Nickel” Vladimir Potanin. He was replaced by the co-owner of “Alpha Group” Mikhail Fridman in the May ranking of Forbes. Russia lags behind the USA, China, Germany and India in the number of billionaires.

The number of taxpayers who declared an income more than a billion roubles last year has increased from 292 to 309 people or nearly by 6 percent. This was reported by “Izvestiya” quoting the data of the Federal Tax Service of Russia (FTS). The number of millionaires (who declared an income from 1 to 10 million roubles) increased by 13 percent and amounted to 451 thousand people.

According to the newspaper, the reason for this was the devaluation of the rouble which took place at the end of 2014 and the campaign of the Russian government aimed at the economy deoffshorization. The influence of the latter factor has increased the total number of declarations of incomes of physical persons for 2014 that were presented to the Federal Tax Service.