The State Duma failed Friday to adopt a sweeping government reform of the country's taxation system, delaying initial approval of the key legislation until at least Wednesday.


The package of bills, which would streamline the country's taxation system and shift some of the tax burden from companies to high-earning individuals, won the support of most deputies who took part in the vote but fell short of the 226 votes needed to pass.


The bills had been amended by a joint commission of government officials and deputies after the Duma, the lower house of parliament, rejected the initial drafts last month. Sergei Aleksashenko, the deputy finance minister who led the government team in the negotiations with the parliament, commented after the vote that the legislators were stuck between two contradicting desires: to reduce taxation on enterprises and to increase budget revenues.


The package presented Friday -- a key element in the government's reformist economic plan for 1995 -- attempted to deal with most of the points over which the opposition had rejected the bills.


Among other provisions, the revised bills would:


?drop a proposal to raise the maximum property tax for enterprises from 2 percent to 3 percent.


?increase the top marginal income tax rate for individuals earning more than 100 million rubles (about $30,000) a year from the current 30 percent to 40 percent, as opposed to 35 percent in the previous draft.


?raise the threshold for the bottom marginal income tax rate of 12 percent from the current 3 million rubles to 10 million rubles, instead of the 5 million rubles proposed in the original government draft.