The domestic food market is preparing for a large-scale strengthening of government control, which will affect every participant in the production chain, from field to fork.
The State Duma adopted in the first reading a government bill establishing a legal basis for end-to-end monitoring of food prices.
The essence of the reform is the lifting of tax secrecy for authorized agencies.
The Federal Tax Service (FTS) will receive the legal right to transfer detailed operational data on retail chains, agricultural producers, and all intermediate suppliers to the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and the Ministry of Economic Development.
This initiative is a clear step by the government toward creating a system for early response to price shocks.
However, for agribusiness itself, this innovation signifies a transition to a regime of absolute financial transparency with regulators.
Tax dossier for ministries: what will be audited
The amendments developed by the Cabinet of Ministers significantly expand Articles 5 and 20 of the Trade Law.
The government will now approve a strict list of agencies with access to commercial information and a list of goods that most significantly impact inflation.
This list is guaranteed to include all socially significant food products.
Agencies will be able to analyze enterprise economics online based on:
Actual transaction prices and physical sales volumes.
Official tax returns and internal financial statements.
Auditor’s reports and consolidated financial statements of holding companies.
As State Secretary and Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Roman Chekushov explained, the Federal Tax Service data will allow ministries to thoroughly assess the factors that shape food prices.
The main goal is to promptly identify unscrupulous actions by resellers and promptly implement economic levers, including customs and tariff regulation measures (the introduction of duties or quotas).
Analytical view: balancing control and the market
Despite the harsh rhetoric and the launch of a total monitoring mechanism, the Ministry of Industry and Trade hastened to reassure businesses.
Roman Chekushov emphasized that the authorities do not impose unjustified markups on seasonal or basic goods and do not plan to introduce direct price regulation.
The ministry’s position is pragmatic: artificially freezing prices disrupts natural market mechanisms.
Fixing profitability at one level (for example, retail) will inevitably cause fatal imbalances and shortages in other chains, hitting processors and farmers.
Therefore, the new law is being created as an analytical tool, not a punitive one.
For large holdings and independent agricultural producers, the adoption of this bill will pose a serious challenge.
Now, any attempt to sharply raise selling prices due to crop failure or rising logistics costs will be immediately analyzed by officials through the prism of actual production costs, including expenses on seeds, fuel, and fertilizers.
Under these circumstances, companies in the sector will have to pay increased attention to the quality of their tax records and the development of sound long-term pricing strategies.
