Four million Russian workers have registered as self-employed since the introduction of an income tax regime targeted toward them in 2019, the country’s Federal Tax Service said in a statement on its website.
According to the FTS, more than 7,000 people a day register with the scheme, most of them running taxi, repair and delivery, marketing and real estate services. The most highly paid professions joining the program include IT, law, consultancy and design.
“The main task in the development of this tax regime is to improve the quality of services provided to the self-employed," the department said, adding that the scheme centers on the My Tax mobile app that enables people to work legally without submitting reports or physically visiting fiscal authorities.
The average age of a self-employed worker is 35, and the FTS said the project’s male-to-female split is 58% to 42%. The tax office added that regions with the youngest freelancers are St. Petersburg, the republic of Chechnya, Tyumen, Voronezh and Nizhny Novgorod, where the average age is 33.
The highest incomes for self-employed professionals were recorded in Moscow and the surrounding region, St. Petersburg, Chukotka and the republic of Tatarstan.
