The Impact of the Value-Added Tax Rate on the Entrepreneurial Behavior Model (On the Example of Palm Oil Importers)

The article discusses the problem of the reducing life quality of Russians in the new conditions of the market economy. The Russian phenomenon of the use of “palm oil” as a priority raw material in food production is analyzed against the decrease in its use in the EU countries and against the expansion of the daily diet of the Chinese due to increased dairy food consumption. Opposing points of view of key industry associations (the Dairy Union of Russia and the Fat and Oil Union of Russia) have been identified and are presented in the context of palm oil use in dairy food production. The results of a statistical study of the demand for palm oil from Russian importers against the background of an increase in the value-added tax rate from 10 to 20% in October 2019 are presented. The data of customs statistics on palm oil imports were analyzed in the context of countries of origin, nine codes of the commodity nomenclature of foreign economic activity, months and years within the five-year period of 2016-2020, as well as in the context of the importing regions of Russia. The results of statistical processing of data by the Federal Customs Service revealed no effect of the sharp increase in the VAT rate on the volume of palm oil imports. The analysis of foreign statistics revealed a significant presence of actors in the chemical industry among transnational companies that are the largest consumers of palm oil. The model of entrepreneurial behavior based on consumption in palm oil production, formed and widely spread in the Russian food industry market, is criticized. 98% of palm oil and its fractions imported into Russia goes to the needs of food industry enterprises, and the authors consider that the foreign ownership of these enterprises plays an important role. In the authors’ opinion, in many respects, the latter fact determined our country’s ranking first in the food chemistry sector in the distribution of published patent applications by technology field for the top 10 origins in 2014-2016. In this respect, Russia is far ahead of China, the USA, Japan, South Korea, Germany, the UK, France, and Switzerland. In China, systematic research is being carried out on the ratio of palm oil use in the food (primarily, instant noodles, other fast food) and non-food (chemical industry, including cosmetics production) sectors.

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