Yuri A. Petrov
Taxes and Taxpayers in Russia in the beginning of the 20th century,
in: Ekonomicheskaja istorija. Ezhegodnik (Economic Hystory. Yearbook). 2002, Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2003, p.384-418.

Summary
The article considers the Russian prewar tax system as an essential part of the government's general economic policy as well as an important factor of economic growth. The following aspects are in the focus of attention: a connection between fiscal and budgetary policies, structure and regional peculiarities of the tax system, Russian taxpayers' social structure. Special attention was paid to the impact of tax burden (taxes and rates) on the economic positions of farms and the level of entrepreneurial activity of the urban population. The research reveals that at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century the Russian state, promoting economic development by indirect actions (such as creation of transport and credit infrastructures, customs-tariff policy, etc.), was not so much economic investor (except for the railroad construction) as the recipient of income from economic growth due to the expansion of assessment's basis and the increase of tax rates. In the beginning of the 20th century commercial and industrial taxes (tax on trade) amounted to half of the total of direct taxes, collected in Russia, in comparison with 20% at the end of the 19th century. At the same time, the tax rate, imposed after 1906 - 22-25% of net profit - corresponded to global tendencies and didn't deprive commercial and industrial businessmen of an incentive to economic activity.

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