The Ministry of Finance is ready to make concessions to business and preserve the current tax regime for some closed-end mutual investment funds (ZPIF). Unitholders of funds that regularly distribute income may avoid a decline in returns due to the new profit tax.
Risks remain for other funds: under the original version of the draft law, they will have to pay a 15% tax on passive income. The agency's intent was to deprive businesses of the ability to hold assets through mutual funds and defer tax payments for years.
Which funds will keep the previous rules
The Ministry of Finance is discussing with business the refinement of the tax draft law for the second reading. The document was submitted simultaneously with the budget draft. According to relevant federal officials, the agency is ready to preserve the current procedure for certain ZPIFs. The relief applies to funds that, within a year after receiving income, pay out to unitholders almost all income minus operating expenses.
The amendments will affect only a tenth of existing ZPIFs in which private investors invest. Work on the draft law's provisions continues.
Currently, mutual funds do not pay profit tax: the obligation arises only upon payment of income to unitholders, and this moment can be deferred for a long time. The draft amendments oblige interval and closed-end funds starting next year to remit 15% of dividends, interest from equity participation, royalties, and income from real estate rentals.
Why fund rules concern an increasing number of people
Private investors invested 19.7 billion rubles in mutual funds on the Moscow Exchange in September — 3.2 times more than a year earlier. Moreover, more than 80% of a private investor's portfolio in BPIFs (exchange-traded mutual funds) is accounted for by money market funds, not the closed-end funds covered by the draft law.
The choice of funds for retail investors is also expanding: the Bank of Russia has registered the rules of the first exchange-traded mutual fund for securitized bonds with a yield of 17–22% per annum. Such issues are backed by pools of consumer loans and auto loans, but their market is still narrow, and reselling the securities before maturity is not easy.
Cryptalist analysis: The Ministry of Finance's readiness to preserve the preferential regime for funds with regular payouts signals a search for a compromise between fiscal interests and support for investment infrastructure. For the market, this is a moderately positive factor: reduced uncertainty over taxation lowers the risk of capital outflow from the ZPIF segment. However, the targeted nature of the relief — only a tenth of funds — maintains structural pressure on closed-end structures and encourages the flow of funds into transparent interval and exchange-traded formats.