Russia could double tax for draft dodgers ‘working from home’

Russian MPs want to more than double the tax rate for people working remotely, in what appears to be yet another Kremlin move to deter people from fleeing mobilisation.

The proposed increase in income tax for remote workers in Russia from 13 per cent to 30 per cent comes as speculation over another mobilisation mounts.

The income tax rise also appears to be aimed at Russia's once valuable IT sector.

The Moscow-based Vedomosti newspaper reported that the changes will affect people who “work abroad but still continue to use Russian internet or hardware, or software that is located in Russia”.

Russian officials are keen to tighten up their mobilisation process after last autumn, when hundreds of thousands fled abroad to avoid being pulled into the country’s first mobilisation since the Second World War.

Earlier this month, the Russian parliament voted to allow mobilisation orders to be served via email rather than just on paper, which were easy to ignore.

The Kremlin’s mobilisation in September conscripted 320,000 men, many sent straight to the front line with little training or workable equipment.

Many fled the order, mainly into neighbouring Kazakhstan, Georgia or Armenia.

Cafes in Tbilisi, Yerevan and Almaty filled up with young Russians tapping away on keyboards as they continued to work remotely for companies back in Moscow and St Petersburg.

In the Kazakh city of Uralsk, near the border with Russian Siberia, IT specialists told The Telegraph how they had dodged being called up to fight in Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine and were working remotely for a Russian company.

The Kremlin’s propaganda machine has portrayed Russian men who fled abroad as selfish cowards who should be punished, compared to the “real men” who signed up to fight an enemy it said is threatening to destroy the country.

One MP proposed confiscating the property of people who have fled Russia to avoid mobilisation. Another said that the Kremlin should “make being abroad less comfortable” for Russian workers.

Short on money and far from home, thousands of the mainly young men who fled Russia last year have returned, but many thousands have stayed abroad.

Reports from Armenia have said that its IT sector has been given a significant boost, rents have sky-rocketed and a surge of Russian cash into its economy has boosted its dram currency.