Pavel Vinogradov, a Russian astronaut and member of the current International Space Station (ISS) crew, is the first Russian citizen to have paid taxes from orbit.
In an exchange with news agency RIA Novosti last week, the Federal Tax Service of Russia said that to do so, Vinogradov had used its Taxpayer Personal Office for Individuals. “All my property tax accounts turned out to be available [even] 3,000km away from the Earth. Everything’s in my Personal Office, which is open 24/7 in any place with access to the web,” a Tax Service spokesperson quoted the cosmonaut as saying.
The Taxpayer Personal Office is a special online portal that enables taxpayers to access a wide range of online services – from tax status updates and tax account management to remote interaction with tax officials.
The Russian tax authority first rolled out the online service on its website in June 2011 and then upgraded it in October 2011 to reach five pilot regions in Russia. Later in 2011, it further enhanced the functionality of the online service through partnership agreements with a number of Russia’s largest banks such as Sberbank, Gazprombank and Promsvyazbank, as well as QIWI Bank, enabling Russian citizens to pay taxes via the partner banks’ e-payment systems.
According to Mikhail Mishustin, the head of the Federal Tax Service of Russia, the novel service gained popularity right out of the gate and “40 million people paid their tax debts online in the first three months of the launch.”
A similar Taxpayer Personal Office for Legal Entities is currently being tested in pilot mode on the authority’s website.
