The Russian government hopes to reduce corporate taxes substantially next year, turning to private individuals as the main source of budget revenue, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Shokhin said Tuesday.


"We want to decrease corporate tax substantially in 1995," Shokhin said. "We will stop using corporate taxes as a major source of budget revenues in favor of taxes on private persons, just like the systems in developed countries."


Shokhin said revenues from personal income tax were still low. Russia's top tax rate is currently 30 percent, payable on incomes of over 10 million rubles ($3,294) a year.


Shokhin said corporate tax revenues were lagging forecast levels by trillions of rubles, partly because companies did not have money in their bank accounts.


"We know for instance that (oil company) LUKoil has trillions of rubles and enough cash assets but they cannot pay the government," he said.